Pope Francis, 86, was hospitalized for ” A few days “, Wednesday, March 29, in Rome. While the Holy See had announced at midday the hospitalization of Francis, invoking “scheduled exams”the Vatican spokesman said in the evening that he was suffering from a “respiratory infection”.
“In recent days, Pope Francis has been experiencing difficulty breathing and this afternoon he was admitted to the Gemelli Polyclinic for medical checks”, said Matteo Bruni. These exams revealed a respiratory infection unrelated to Covid-19, he said. The Holy See has not said whether the pope will be able to preside over Palm Sunday Mass at the Vatican or the celebrations planned for Holy Week and Easter.
In the morning, the Argentine pope had participated as every Wednesday in the weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, during which he appeared smiling, greeting the faithful from his “popemobile”. François, who has been in a wheelchair since May 2022 due to chronic knee pain, had already been hospitalized for ten days at Gemelli Hospital in July 2021 for a major colon operation.
The ability to “stand aside”
In an interview granted in January to the American agency Associated Press, he suggested that his problems with inflammation of the diverticula – hernias or pockets that form on the walls of the digestive tract – had returned. François had explained that he had kept “aftereffects” from the anesthesia suffered at the time of this operation, sequelae which have led him to rule out the possibility of knee surgery so far.
His knee pain, which notably forced him to cancel several appointments in 2022 and to postpone a trip to Africa, is at the heart of conjecture around a possible resignation. Francis has always left the door open to this scenario, like his predecessor Benedict XVI, who renounced his position by taking the whole world by surprise.
In July, the pope confided that he could not “more travel” at the same pace as before, going so far as to mention the possibility of ” put aside “. But in February he ruled that a pope’s renunciation should not “not become a fad”ensuring that this hypothesis did not appear “not on his agenda at the moment”.