ROME (AP) — Pope Francis’ complex respiratory infection isn’t life-threatening but he’s not out of danger, his medical team said Friday, as the 88-year-old pontiff marked his first week in the hospital battling pneumonia in both lungs — along with bacterial, viral and fungal infections on top of his chronic bronchitis.
Francis’ doctors delivered their first in-person update on the pope’s condition, saying he will remain at Rome’s Gemelli hospital at least through next week. The pope is receiving occasional supplements of oxygen when he needs it and is responding to the drug therapy that was strengthened after the multiple infections were diagnosed, they said.
Gemelli hospital Dr. Sergio Alfieri and Francis’ personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, said Francis remains in good spirits and humor. Alfieri said that when he entered Francis’ suite to greet him on Friday morning as “Holy Father,” the pope replied by referring to Alfieri as “Holy Son.”
“To the question ‘is the pope out of danger?’ No, the pope is not out of danger,” Alfieri said. “If you then ask if in this moment the pope is in a life-threatening situation, the answer is also no.”
“Just now he went from his room to the chapel to pray for 20 minutes,” he said. “This is the situation. He is the pope, but he is also a man.”
Francis was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened. Doctors first diagnosed the complex respiratory infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs on top of chronic bronchitis. They prescribed “absolute rest.”
Alfieri said the pope came down with a seasonal infection that has filled hospitals, but with a difference.
“Other 88-year-old people generally stay at home and watch TV in a rocking chair. Do you know any other 88-year-olds who govern, let’s say, a state and is also the spiritual father of all Catholics in the world? He does not spare himself, because he is enormously generous, so he got tired,″ Alfieri said.
Francis is a known workaholic and has admitted to being a not-terribly-compliant patient in the past. Alfieri said he had been a “great patient” since he was admitted, but turned the floor over to Carbone to respond to whether he was disciplined when home, at the Santa Marta hotel in the Vatican where he lives.
“He loves the church, and so it’s clear he put the church first while we cared for him at Santa Marta,” Carbone replied.
Carbone said that Francis was responding to the drug therapy that was “strengthened” after the pneumonia was diagnosed earlier this week.
He is also fighting a multipronged infection caused by bacteria, virus and fungus in the respiratory tract. Doctors said there was no evidence the germs had entered his bloodstream, a condition known as sepsis that they said remains the biggest concern. Sepsis is a complication of an infection that can lead to organ failure and death.
Francis is receiving supplemental oxygen when he needs it through a nasal cannula, a thin flexible tube that delivers oxygen through the nose, but otherwise is attached to no other machinery.
The doctors said Francis’ chronic bronchitis had caused permanent damage to his airways, a condition known as bronchiectasis. The cortisone treatment he received in the hospital has raised his blood sugar levels, requiring treatment for diabetes. But Alfieri said he hoped the condition would be temporary.
In the best scenario, the pope will return to his residence cured of the infections, but his chronic conditions will remain, Alfieri said.
As his hospital stay drags on, some of Francis’ cardinals have begun responding to the obvious question that is circulating: whether Francis might resign if he becomes irreversibly sick and unable to carry on. Francis has said he would consider it, after Pope Benedict XVI “opened the door” to popes retiring, but has shown no signs of stepping down and in fact has asserted recently that the job of pope is for life.
Francis confirmed in 2022 that, shortly after being elected pontiff, he wrote a resignation letter in case medical problems impeded him from carrying out his duties. There is no provision in canon law for what to do if a pope becomes incapacitated.
But there is no indication Francis is in any way incapacitated or is even considering stepping aside. During his hospital stay, he has continued to work, including making bishop appointments. After a hospital stay in 2021, he bristled when he learned that some clergy were allegedly already preparing for a conclave to elect his successor.
Francis had an acute case of pneumonia in 2023 and is prone to respiratory infections in winter.
Doctors say pneumonia in such a fragile, older patient makes him particularly prone to complications, given the difficulty in being able to effectively expel fluid from his lungs. While his heart is strong, Francis isn’t a particularly healthy 88-year-old. He is overweight, is not physically active, uses a wheelchair because of bad knees and had part of one lung removed as a young man.
Despite the seriousness of Francis’ illness, it appears there have been moments of levity. Alfieri said he bowed his head close to the pope to explain that the hospitalization would continue until he could safely return to his residence at the Vatican.
“He asked if I wanted to say confession,″ the doctor said. “I said, ‘Holy Father, if I have to confess, your hospitalization will be much, much longer.’”
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Barry reported from Milan. AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson in the U.S. state of Washington, contributed to this report.
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