When Francis looks out the window from the tenth floor of the Gemelli Clinic, he sees his predecessor John Paul II. A large statue of the Pope of the Century stands in the forecourt of the hospital, where the current pontiff has been treated since Wednesday. Many concerned Catholics are thinking of the 86-year-old, who, according to official information, is suffering from a respiratory infection. Their prayers are supposed to support the Argentine, like the papal cross to which the marble sculpture of John Paul in front of the clinic entrance is attached. “Don’t be afraid!” reads a plaque.
In fact, concern was and is great in the Church since the Holy See surprisingly announced on Wednesday afternoon that the Pope had been admitted to the Policlinico Universitario Fondazione Agostino Gemelli. After initially succinctly talking about “planned” tests, but the media quickly recognized a much more serious situation, a respiratory infection was communicated in the evening. Francis would have to be hospitalized for “a few days,” it said.
There was a lot of activity at the main entrance of the hospital, which belongs to the Pontifical University of Santa Croce, on Thursday morning. Patients, relatives, visitors and employees go in and out of the clinic, many have of course already heard of the prominent patient from the Vatican. As you pass by, you look up at the tenth floor of the somewhat outdated building. There is the so-called Pope’s room, a simple apartment in which John Paul II was treated. “Can we see him from here?” a woman asks her companion down in the courtyard.
TV crews have already set up their cameras on a hill behind the couple, and correspondents are broadcasting live. Photographers zoom towards the windows belonging to Francis’ room. The blinds are almost all the way down in the morning.
Get well wishes from around the world
The first media reports spoke of a quiet night for the pope. The Ansa news agency quoted a source from the hospital as saying that the night was “smooth as oil”. In addition, the medical supervisors are optimistic that the Holy Father can be back in the Vatican on Palm Sunday. An official forecast from the Curia was initially pending.
While chairs were being set up in St. Peter’s Square for the celebrations for Palm Sunday, Holy Week and then Easter, there was a lack of clarity as to the extent to which the pontiff would be able to take an active part in the most important services of the liturgical year. The Way of the Cross celebrated at the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday and also the Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica are relatively long and rather late celebrations. The newspaper “La Stampa” reported a “great fear” for the pope.
Wishes for Francis’ recovery have been coming from all over the world since Wednesday evening. US President Joe Biden, himself a Catholic, called for prayers for Francis at a reception at the White House. Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella wished for a speedy recovery. The Archdiocese of Cologne and the Bishops’ Conferences of Italy and France assured the pontiff of their prayers. “Pope Francis is touched by the many messages he has received and is grateful for the closeness and prayer,” said spokesman Matteo Bruni.
Pope Francis and his health – this has been an ongoing topic in Rome for quite a while. Since the Jesuit underwent an operation on his intestines in 2021 and from the beginning of 2022 he has been sitting in a wheelchair most of the time because of a knee problem, there has been whispering. On every papal trip, for example, journalists ask the pontiff about his physical condition. “Weeds don’t go away,” he joked in early February, but then admitted, “The knee is annoying me.”
The constant gossip bothers him
In an interview, he recently revealed that his intestinal problem, for which he had just been operated on in Gemelli Hospital in 2021, had recurred. When asked about a possible resignation because of the physical ailments, Francis recently replied: “You rule with your head and not with your knees.” Basically, he thinks nothing of resignations, after the resignation of his predecessor Benedict XVI. should this not become a fashion, Francis made it clear. And the constant gossip on the subject bothers him too.
At the same time, however, the Argentine admitted that he always had to be mentally fit in order to remain pope. One reason for resignation could only be “a tiredness that makes you no longer see things clearly. A lack of clarity, of the ability to evaluate situations,” he said recently on Swiss television. “Maybe a physical problem too.” It is clear that Francis does not want to end up like John Paul II, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease and became weaker and weaker and then the world could practically watch him die.
