The latest update from the Vatican about Pope Francis' health reveals that his condition has deteriorated yet again, now presenting with double pneumonia.
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has double pneumonia requiring “complex” medical care in the hospital, the Holy See Press Office announced Tuesday evening.
In a statement issued to the Vatican press corps around 7:30 p.m., the press office director stated that Francis’ health situation had deteriorated once again after his Friday admission to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital:
The laboratory tests, chest X-ray and clinical conditions of the Holy Father continue to present a complex picture.
The polymicrobial infection, which arose in a context of bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis, and which required the use of cortisone and antibiotic therapy, makes the therapeutic treatment more complex.
The chest CAT scan that the Holy Father underwent this afternoon, prescribed by the Vatican health team and the medical team of the “A. Gemelli” Polyclinic Foundation, showed the onset of bilateral pneumonia that required further drug therapy.
Nevertheless, Pope Francis is in a good mood.
This morning he received the Eucharist and, during the day, he alternated rest with prayer and reading texts. He is grateful for the closeness he feels at this moment and asks, with gratitude, that people continue to pray for him.
Already missing a large part of one lung as a result of illness in his early 20s, Francis has always been particularly susceptible to winter colds affecting his breathing capability.
Francis had been admitted to hospital Friday with a fever and with bronchitis, though the Holy See Press Office told journalists Saturday evening that the fever had apparently subsided, and medical personnel reportedly stated that he was showing “improvement in some values.”
On Sunday evening, his condition was declared "stationary," but then on Monday the press office announced it had worsened and that "all the investigations carried out to date are indicative of a complex clinical picture that will require appropriate hospital stay."
Earlier today, his audiences were again cancelled, this time up to the end of Sunday, February 23.
Should he remain in the hospital until then, then it would indeed be the longest hospitalization of his pontificate. He was in the hospital for less than five days in the spring of 2023 and then in June 2023 for nine days. During the latter occasion, he underwent surgery for an “incarcerated incisional hernia” that the Holy See Press Office described as a necessary procedure but not an emergency.
