Ailing Pope Francis ‘rested well’ but misses start of Lent
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A drawing with a message that reads "Get well soon Pope Francis" placed outside Rome's Gemelli Hospital, where Pope Francis is admitted for treatment.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis’s condition was stable on March 5 as he neared three weeks in hospital battling pneumonia, a Vatican source said, with celebrations for the Lent religious season starting without him.
The 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church has suffered a worrying series of respiratory attacks since his admission to the Gemelli in Rome on Feb 14
The Pope “rested well overnight”, the Vatican said on March 5, while a Holy See source said later that, as at March 4 evening, his condition remained “stable”.
He wore an oxygen mask both on the March 3 and March 4 night because it helped him sleep better, the source said, while on March 5, he was receiving “high-flow” oxygen via a nasal cannula.
Pope Francis had passed a calm day on March 4 after March 3’s two episodes of acute respiratory failure, with the Vatican reporting that he had no fever, was “alert” and cooperating with his treatment.
But the Argentine’s prognosis “remains reserved”, meaning doctors will not say how they expect his condition to evolve.
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has not been seen since his hospitalisation, with audiences cancelled and Pope Francis missing three successive Sunday Angelus prayers – a first in his papacy.
He will miss celebrations on March 5 for the start of Lent, the 40 days preceding Easter – the holiest period in the Christian calendar – when Christians believe that Christ fasted in the desert.
The Pope usually leads the main Ash Wednesday service, which starts at 1600 GMT (12am Singapore time on March 6).
In his absence, the mass will be presided over by Italian Cardinal Angelo de Donatis after a procession on Rome’s Aventine Hill.
Pope Francis also missed Ash Wednesday celebrations in 2022, that time due to acute knee pain – one of a series of health woes that have afflicted the pontiff since his election in 2013.
His health has regularly led to speculation, particularly among his critics, as to whether he would resign, like his predecessor did.
Worried Catholics around the world have been praying for the Pope’s recovery this time.
‘Praying for him’
Pope Francis, who had part of a lung removed when he was a young man, had been breathless and struggled to read his texts in the days leading up to his admission.
On Feb 22, he suffered a “prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis” and on Feb 28 had “an isolated crisis of bronchospasm” – a tightening of the muscles that line the airways in the lungs.
On March 3, Pope Francis “experienced two episodes of acute respiratory failure, caused by a significant accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm”, according to the Vatican.
Acute respiratory failure, which can be life-threatening, occurs when the lungs cannot pass enough oxygen into the blood or when carbon dioxide builds up in the body.
Pope Francis is in a special papal suite with its own chapel at the hospital.
His medical team has not commented on the length of his stay, nor how long his recovery could take.
He has had very few visitors. Among them is Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, the Vatican’s No. 3, who visited on March 2.
In an interview published on March 5, Archbishop Parra gave no details at all about how Pope Francis was, just saying that he was “carrying in his body signs of fragility and illness, like every human being”.
In the meantime, the Vatican has been plunged into uncertainty, officials continuing their work while waiting anxiously for each medical bulletin.
On March 4, Catholics from Argentina gathered in front of Gemelli Hospital and placed among the candles a blue and white replica of “Our Lady of Lujan”, a celebrated 16th-century statue of the Virgin Mary.
Pope Francis used to visit Our Lady of Lujan before becoming pope, when he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
“He knows that the whole Church is praying for him, and our prayer is a strength that he receives from the Holy Spirit,” Mr Fernando Laguna, a priest from the Argentine parish in Rome, told AFP. AFP
