Pope Francis is expected to return home on Saturday after what will have been three nights in hospital with bronchitis, and will attend Palm Sunday services, the Vatican said.
The 86-year-old responded well to antibiotics and on Thursday night shared pizza with staff caring for him at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, spokesman Matteo Bruni said.
The Argentine pope, who had part of a lung removed as a young man, has had increasing health problems in recent years and it was his second hospital stay since 2021.
On Friday morning, he had breakfast, read some newspapers and did some work in the private papal suite on the 10th floor of the hospital, where he was admitted on Wednesday after complaining of breathing problems.
“His Holiness’s return to Santa Marta (his home in the Vatican) is expected tomorrow, in the wake of the results of the latest tests this morning,” Bruni said on Friday.
He said Pope Francis will preside over Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, which marks the beginning of Holy Week and Easter, Christianity’s most important holiday.
This means that the pope remains seated while someone else – probably a senior cardinal – performs the ceremony at the altar. The Mass will be followed by the Pope’s regular Angelus Prayer on Sunday.
Francis’s hospitalization, just weeks after 10 years as head of the worldwide Catholic Church, had caused great concern.
He has repeatedly said he would consider stepping down if his health failed him, following the lead of his predecessor Benedict XVI, but said in February he had no plans to retire for now.
– Eat and pray –
The Vatican initially said Francis was hospitalized for scheduled checks before later revealing he was complaining of breathing difficulties.
In a statement issued by the Vatican, medical staff said late Thursday that Francis was suffering from “contagious bronchitis that required the administration of antibiotics”.
The treatment resulted in “a marked improvement in his health” and he was well enough to eat, work and pray in the private chapel in the hospital suite.
Gemelli Hospital is the favored choice of popes to the point of being dubbed “Vatican 3” by John Paul II, who was treated at Gemelli nine times and spent a total of 153 days there.
Francis, a Jesuit who seems happiest among his flock, continues to travel internationally and has a busy schedule.
But he’s been forced to use a wheelchair and cane by knee pain for the past year and admitted last summer that he needed to slow down.
He said on Thursday he was “touched by the many messages” he received at the hospital, and took to Twitter to thank those who prayed for his recovery.
Among them is US President Joe Biden, only the second Catholic president in US history, who sent his “best wishes for his speedy and full recovery”.
“The world needs Pope Francis,” Biden wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
– Rumors of layoffs –
Francis was admitted to the same hospital in Rome for 10 days in July 2021 for colon surgery after suffering from a type of diverticulitis, an inflammation of the cavities that develop in the lining of the gut.
In a January interview, the pope said the diverticulitis had returned.
His predecessor Benedict XVI shocked the world in 2013 by becoming the first pope since the Middle Ages to resign, citing his declining physical and mental health.
The German theologian died on December 31 at the age of 95.
Francis has said he will follow suit if he can’t do his job, though he has warned that the pope’s resignation should not be the norm.
He said in a February interview that the idea was not “on my agenda” at the moment.
Still, a Vatican from the leading Corriere della Sera noted that with the pope’s hospitalization, “speculation about the near future of his pontificate is becoming less theoretical.”
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