Pope Francis, who has chronic lung disease, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on February 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened
The Vatican carried on with its Holy Year celebrations without the Pope on Saturday, as Pope Francis battled pneumonia and a complex respiratory infection that doctors say remains touch-and-go and will keep him hospitalised for at least another week.
Pope Francis slept well overnight, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a brief early update Saturday. But doctors have warned that the main threat facing the 88-year-old Pope Francis would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia.
As of Friday, there was no evidence of any sepsis, and Pope Francis was responding to the various drugs he is taking, the pope’s medical team said in their first in-depth update on the pope’s condition.
Pope Francis will not lead Sunday prayers for a second week running, Vatican says “He is not out of danger,” said his personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone. “So like all fragile patients I say they are always on the golden scale: In other words, it takes very little to become unbalanced.”
Pope Francis, who has chronic lung disease, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on February 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened. Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs. They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when he needs it.
Dr. Carbone, who along with Pope Francis’ personal nurse Massimiliano Strappetti organised care for him at the Vatican, acknowledged he had insisted on staying at the Vatican to work, even after he was sick, “because of institutional and private commitments”.
He was cared for by a cardiologist and infectious specialist in addition to his personal medical team before being hospitalised. Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the head of medicine and surgery at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, said the biggest threat facing Pope Francis was that some of the germs that are currently located in his respiratory system pass into the bloodstream, causing sepsis. Sepsis can lead to organ failure and death.
“Sepsis, with his respiratory problems and his age, would be really difficult to get out of,” Dr. Alfieri told a press conference Friday (February 21, 2025) at Gemelli. “The English say knock on wood,’ we say touch iron.’ Everyone touch what they want,” he said as he tapped the microphone. “But this is the real risk in these cases: that these germs pass to the bloodstream.”
“He knows he’s in danger,” Dr. Alfieri added. “And he told us to relay that.” Deacons, meanwhile, were gathering at the Vatican for their special Jubilee weekend. Pope Francis got sick at the start of the Vatican’s Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration of Catholicism. This weekend, Pope Francis was supposed to have celebrated deacons, a ministry in the church that precedes ordination to the priesthood.
In his place, the Holy Year organiser will celebrate Sunday’s Mass, the Vatican said. And for the second weekend in a row, Pope Francis was expected to skip his traditional Sunday noon blessing, which he could have delivered from Gemelli if he were up to it.
Beyond that, doctors have said his recovery will take time and that regardless he will still have to live with his chronic respiratory problems back at the Vatican. “He has to get over this infection and we all hope he gets over it,” said Dr. Alfieri. “But the fact is, all doors are open.”
Francis, who is staying in a special papal suite on the 10th floor of the Gemelli hospital, has been moving between his bed, a chair, and an adjacent chapel where he prays. He will remain in hospital “at least for all next week”, Alfieri said. “If we send him to Santa Marta (his home at the Vatican), he’ll start working again as before,” he said.
Asked if the pope would be well enough to lead the Angelus prayer from his hospital window this Sunday, Alfieri said “the pope will decide”. The doctor said “the real risk in these cases is that the germs pass into the blood”, which could result in sepsis, a life-threatening condition.
Doctor Luigi Carbone said the pope, who had part of one of his lungs removed as a young man, now has a chronic lung condition and “is by definition a fragile patient”. But Alfieri stressed that “at the same time, he has incredible resilience — How many others would have endured all these infections with the workload he has?”
He added that Francis had difficulty breathing but was not on any machines and was “in good spirits”. He still has the wit of “a 70-year-old, maybe a 50-year-old”. But Francis’s absence from the Vatican means questions are being raised over the future of a leader with a punishing schedule who has been increasingly plagued by health issues in recent years.
Since 2021, he has undergone colon and hernia surgery, is overweight, and suffers constant hip and knee pain, which force him to use a wheelchair most of the time. Francis is also one of the oldest popes ever — and though he has said the job is for life, the pope has left the door open to resigning like his predecessor Benedict XVI.
