Left: Banners at Rome’s Gemelli University Hospital. Right: Pope Francis waves from a wheelchair, Feb. 13, 2025. (Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)
Vatican City, Feb 19, 2025 / 14:20 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis’ health condition has remained stable as he continues a stay in the hospital, though recent bloodwork showed a “slight improvement,” the Vatican said on Wednesday afternoon.
According to the Feb. 19 communication, medical staff found the pope’s blood tests to show less inflammatory markers. They said his clinical condition is “stationary.”
The 88-year-old Francis, who has been receiving treatment for a polymicrobial respiratory infection at Gemelli Hospital since Friday, received an additional diagnosis of double pneumonia on Feb. 18.
The Vatican said on Wednesday that Pope Francis had breakfast, read a few newspapers, and did some work with the help of his secretaries. Before lunch, the pontiff received the Eucharist, and in the afternoon he was visited by Italian President Giorgia Meloni for 20 minutes.
According to the president’s office, Meloni wished the pope a quick recovery on behalf of the Italian government and the whole country.
The Italian president said she found Francis “alert and responsive.”
“We joked as always. He has not lost his legendary sense of humor,” Meloni added.
A Vatican source said Wednesday morning that Pope Francis does not need supplemental oxygen, that is heart is holding up well, and he is able to occasionally sit in an armchair.
The Vatican has said Francis is receiving cortisone antibiotic therapy to treat a “complex” medical situation, but he “is in good spirits” and asks for continued prayers.
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Pope Francis at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, April 6, 2025, wearing nasal cannulas for supplemental oxygen as he continues recovering from bilateral pneumonia. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/EWTN News
CNA Newsroom, Apr 6, 2025 / 07:32 am (CNA).
Still recovering from bilateral pneumonia that hospitalized him for nearly 40 days, Pope Francis made a surprise appearance in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for the Jubilee of the Sick, sharing profound reflections on suffering, care, and the transformative power of illness.
Wearing nasal cannulas that provide supplemental oxygen, Pope Francis arrived in a wheelchair accompanied by a nurse.
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
Hundreds of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square on April 6, receiving him enthusiastically around 11:45 a.m. local time.
The pontiff said that “the sickbed can become a ‘holy place’ of salvation and redemption, both for the sick and for those who care for them.”
“I have much in common with you at this time of my life, dear brothers and sisters who are sick: the experience of illness, of weakness, of having to depend on others in so many things, and of needing their support,” the pope told his audience.
“This is not always easy, but it is a school in which we learn each day to love and to let ourselves be loved, without being demanding or pushing back, without regrets and without despair, but rather with gratitude to God and to our brothers and sisters for the kindness we receive, looking toward the future with acceptance and trust.”
The 88-year-old pontiff invited the faithful to contemplate the Israelites’ situation in exile, as Isaiah described. “It seemed that all was lost,” Francis noted, but added that it was precisely in this moment of trial that “a new people was being born.” He connected this biblical experience to the woman in the day’s Gospel reading who had been condemned and ostracized for her sins.
Her accusers, ready to cast the first stone, were halted by the quiet authority of Jesus, the pope’s homily explained.
Faithful gather in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers on April 6, 2025, including religious sisters, medical professionals, and pilgrims from around the world. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
In comparing these stories, Pope Francis emphasized that God does not wait for our lives to be perfect before intervening.
“Illness is certainly one of the harshest and most difficult of life’s trials, when we experience in our own flesh our common human frailty. It can make us feel like the people in exile, or like the woman in the Gospel: deprived of hope for the future,” the pontiff’s homily said.
“Yet that is not the case. Even in these times, God does not leave us alone, and if we surrender our lives to him, precisely when our strength fails, we will be able to experience the consolation of his presence. By becoming man, he wanted to share our weakness in everything.”
Pope Francis thanked all health care workers for their service in a particularly moving passage: “Dear doctors, nurses, and health care workers, in caring for your patients, especially the most vulnerable among them, the Lord constantly affords you an opportunity to renew your lives through gratitude, mercy, and hope.”
The pontiff encouraged them to receive every patient as an opportunity to renew their sense of humanity. His words acknowledged the challenges facing medical workers, including inadequate working conditions and even instances of aggression against them.
Bringing his address to a close, the pontiff recalled the encyclical Spe Salvi of Pope Benedict XVI, who reminded the Church that “the true measure of humanity is determined in relation to suffering.” Francis warned, with the words of his predecessor, that “a society unable to accept its suffering members is a cruel and inhuman society.”
Archbishop Rino Fisichella incenses a statue of the Madonna and Child during the Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers at St. Peter’s Square, April 6, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
The Holy Father urged all present to resist the temptation to marginalize and forget the elderly, ill, or those weighed down by life’s hardships: “Dear friends, let us not exclude from our lives those who are frail, as at times, sadly, a certain mentality does today.”
‘I feel the finger of God’
In his brief Angelus remarks following the Mass, the pope shared his personal experience: “Dear friends, as during my hospitalization, even now in my convalescence I feel the ‘finger of God’ and experience his caring touch.”
The pope also called for prayers for all who suffer and for health care professionals, urging investment in necessary resources for care and research, so that health care systems may be inclusive and attend to the most fragile and poor.
Pope Francis concluded with a plea for peace in conflict zones, including Ukraine, Gaza, the Middle East, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and Haiti.
The Holy See has not yet commented on whether Pope Francis will participate in Holy Week ceremonies, with the Vatican press office indicating that “it is premature to discuss this” and assuring that further details will be provided later.
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Pope Francis greets an elderly couple at his general audience on Jan. 11, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Feb 15, 2024 / 12:22 pm (CNA).
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2 Comments
Thank God, hope he makes a full recovery.
He needs prayers, and we need to show him empathy and forgiveness, even when we disagree with some of his statements. Hang in there, Pope Francis.
The soul searching many of us prayed for, does not seem to have slowed down his hunger and thirst for continuing deconstruction mischief in the Church.
Thank God, hope he makes a full recovery.
He needs prayers, and we need to show him empathy and forgiveness, even when we disagree with some of his statements. Hang in there, Pope Francis.
The soul searching many of us prayed for, does not seem to have slowed down his hunger and thirst for continuing deconstruction mischief in the Church.