Pope Francis has a respiratory illness and will need to be hospitalised for “a few days,” the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday, prompting worries for the 86-year-old’s health.
According to the statement, the 86-year-old pope was transferred to Rome’s Gemelli hospital after complaining of respiratory issues for many days. According to the report, tests revealed that he had the illness but lacked COVID-19.
The Vatican added, “Pope Francis is touched by the many messages received and expresses his gratitude for the closeness and prayer.”
Francis, who celebrated his tenth year as Pope this month, is sometimes short of breath and is more vulnerable to respiratory ailments in general. In his early twenties, while studying to be a priest in Argentina, he had a portion of one lung removed.
His current hospitalization comes only days before a Palm Sunday ceremony on April 2, which kicks off a frenetic week of festivities running up to Easter Sunday on April 9, casting doubt on his ability to conduct them as is normal.
Francis’ health has been under heightened scrutiny in the last two years, during which time he has had colon surgery and has begun using a wheelchair or a walking stick owing to severe discomfort in one knee.
The Vatican first said that the pope had gone to the hospital on Wednesday for a routine check-up. However, according to Italian media, he came in an ambulance after cancelling a television interview at the last minute.
Francis had seemed in excellent health during his weekly public audience in St Peter’s Square in the morning.
‘We Need Him.’
The devout in Argentina prayed for the pope’s health since he has not returned to his birthplace since departing for the Vatican a decade ago.
“If the Pope could listen to us, I would tell him that we need him because the reform that he faced is not complete,” said Marcela Mazzini, a professor at Buenos Aires’ Inmaculada Concepcion Seminary, where the pope, then known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, studied.
“I don’t think you’ll leave without coming to Argentina first,” engineer Santiago Goggi, 40, remarked as he sat on the seminary steps, indirectly hinting at the pope’s impending demise. “You must come to see us.”
The future Pope, the son of Italian immigrants, lived cheaply as archbishop of Buenos Aires, using public transportation and maintaining a low profile while visiting the destitute in shanty neighbourhoods, where many remember him.
Daniel Saco, a 59-year-old former catechist at the city’s cathedral, said Francis “must be asking himself if he can or cannot go on. He must be praying and asking the entire Catholic world to pray for him. He always says ‘Pray for me,’ and must be open to what God dictates to his conscience.”
Health Conditions
The world’s almost 1.4 billion Roman Catholic leaders suffer from diverticulitis, a malady that may infect or inflame the colon, and was operated on in 2021 at the Gemelli hospital to remove part of his colon.
He said in January that the disease had reappeared and was causing him to gain weight, but he was not alarmed, and he did not explain.
Francis told the media last year that he did not want to undergo surgery on his ailing knee because he did not want to experience the same long-term bad side effects from anaesthetic that he had following the 2021 procedure.
Last July, on his way back from a trip to Canada, Francis confessed that his advanced age and difficulties walking may have signalled the beginning of a new, slower period of his papacy.
He has subsequently visited Kazakhstan and Bahrain, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.
He has also committed to visiting Hungary in late April, Portugal in August, and the French city of Marseille in September, with the intention of flying from Marseille to Mongolia if possible.
After honouring his late predecessor Benedict XVI’s unprecedented decision to retire for health reasons in 2013, Francis has hinted that he would follow in his late predecessor’s footsteps only if he were dangerously ill.
When asked by Italian Swiss television RSI on March 12 what condition might cause him to resign, he answered, “A tiredness that doesn’t allow you to see things clearly.” A lack of clarity in determining how to assess things.”
