Pope Leo XIV decries severe suffering in Gaza and Ukraine

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- Reform of the Vatican Curia aims to emphasize pastoral care, and should not be seen as a reform that will overturn the whole Curia, a bishop involved in Rome’s Curia reform process has explained.
&nbs… […]

Pope Francis blesses the faithful at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, on April 6, 2025, as his personal nurse, Massimo Strappetti, assists him in the wheelchair. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Vatican City, Apr 23, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Having cared for the aging Pope Francis as his personal nurse since 2022, Italian nurse Massimiliano Strappetti was among the few people who saw the Holy Father moments before his death on Easter Monday.

Before being appointed Pope Francis’ personal nurse in August 2022, Strappetti was the nursing coordinator for the Vatican’s health department. He started working in the Vatican in 2002 after having worked eight years in the intensive care unit of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.

Strappetti’s appointment came very soon after he accompanied the Holy Father on a difficult apostolic journey to Canada from July 24–30, 2022. Throughout 2022, the Holy Father struggled with knee problems.

From August 2022 onward, Strappetti would be seen by the pope’s side at almost every one of the pontiff’s public appearances, including his weekly Wednesday general audiences and Sunday Angelus addresses in Rome and the Vatican as well as on his several apostolic journeys abroad.  

The pope’s last words and final greetings were reportedly addressed to Strappetti, the man he trusted to care for him throughout the multiple illnesses and health emergencies he endured in the last years of his life. 

“Thank you for bringing me back to the Square,” the pope is reported to have told the nurse. Stappetti, a husband and father known for his generosity toward others, brought the Holy Father in a wheelchair to the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver his final Easter Sunday urbi et orbi address on April 20.

After the blessing, the pope turned to Strappetti for his opinion, asking: “Do you think I can manage it?” before going down to the square to greet the 50,000 people from his popemobile, Vatican News reported. 

The next day, the pope’s health began to deteriorate at around 5:30 a.m. on Easter Monday morning. An hour later, the Holy Father made a “gesture of farewell with his hand” to Strappetti before falling into a coma, after suffering a stroke, in his bed in his Casa Santa Marta apartment, Vatican News reported. 

Strappetti closely accompanied the 88-year-old pope during his convalescence in the Vatican by providing round-the-clock care for the pope in his home following his March 23 release from the hospital after 38 days in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.

In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, head of the Gemelli Hospital’s medical team that cared for the pope, said they followed the pope’s clear order, through Strappetti, to “try everything, let’s not give up” during two critical moments when they needed to decide whether to continue or stop treatment.  

Prior to working more closely with the Holy Father as his personal health care assistant, Strappetti was among the medical staff who, in the summer of 2021, advised the pope to undergo testing regarding issues with his colon. On July 4 of that year, the Holy Father underwent a three-hour operation that removed part of his colon. 

Later in 2021, following the colon operation and 11-day hospitalization in Gemelli, Pope Francis praised Strappetti as “a man with a lot of experience” who “saved my life,” in an interview with Spanish radio station COPE.

“Now I can eat everything, which was not possible before with the diverticula. I can eat everything. I still have the postoperative medications, because the brain has to register that it has 33 centimeters [12 inches] less intestine,” the pope quipped in the interview.

[…]

Pope Francis prays with members of the Synod on Synodality during one of its meetings in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on the morning of Oct. 12, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Oct 12, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

Prayer groups are sponsoring an online platform through which you can “adopt” a Synod on Synodality member to pray for during the month of October.

After submitting an email address on the webpage oremusprosynodo.org, the name of one of the 368 voting members (also called delegates) of the 2024 meeting of the Synod on Synodality appears with the exhortation to pray for them.

The synod prayer campaign also sends a daily email with a guide for how to pray for the “adopted” synod delegate throughout the Vatican assembly Oct. 2–27.

The initiative is organized by synod leaders in collaboration with three Church-connected groups: The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, Click to Pray, and The Church Is Listening.

The second session of the assembly of the Synod on Synodality is taking place at the Vatican this month. It marks the end of the discernment phase of the Catholic Church’s synodal process begun in 2021.

Throughout the October meeting, synod participants will pray together daily and attend prayer services and Masses.

During the first half of the monthlong gathering, synod members attended a retreat, a penitential liturgy, the synod opening Mass, and an ecumenical prayer vigil. They will also join in a Mass of canonization on Oct. 20 and participate in a mini-retreat on Oct. 21 before the synod’s concluding Mass on Oct. 27.

[…]