Pope Francis left Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Sunday, more than five weeks after being admitted on February 14 with lung problems that progressed to pneumonia.
The leader of the Catholic Church left in a car, waving from the closed window of the front seat as he drove past journalists while wearing a cannula, a plastic tube tucked into his nostrils that distributes oxygen.
Earlier, on Sunday, the Pope greeted and thanked the faithful from the hospital’s balcony, his first public appearance since being admitted.
“Thank you, everyone,” a weak-sounding pontiff said into a microphone as he sat in a wheelchair, waving gently to hundreds of people gathered below, doing a thumbs-up sign.
