Pope Francis, 86, was hospitalized Wednesday for “a few days” in Rome to be treated for a respiratory infection, a new alert for the head of the Catholic Church who suffers from recurrent health problems.
The examinations “have revealed a respiratory infection (excluding Covid-19 infection) that will require a few days of medical care in hospital”.
The Holy See had announced mid-day the hospitalization of Francis citing “scheduled examinations”, the Vatican spokesman said in the evening that he suffered from a “respiratory infection”. It was known that “in recent days, Pope Francis has had difficulty breathing and this afternoon he was admitted to the Polyclinic A. Gemelli Polyclinic for medical checks”, said Matteo Bruni.
The Vatican did not say whether the Pope would be able to preside at the Palm Sunday Mass in the Vatican or at the celebrations planned for Holy Week and Easter.
In the morning, the Argentine pope, who in mid-March passed the 10-year mark of his pontificate, 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 “papamobile.”
In an interview in January, he suggested that his problems with inflamed diverticula – hernias or pockets that form on the walls of the digestive tract – had returned.
In a recently published book, he recalled this episode: “I understand how people with coronavirus can feel when they have to struggle to breathe through artificial respirators.
He also recalled another operation to remove cysts from his right lung in an interview with renowned Argentine journalist and doctor Nelson Castro, stressing that he had “completely recovered” and had “never felt limited since then”.
