After days of a cautious optimism and two weeks in a hospital with pneumonia in both lungs, Pope Francis on Friday suffered another respiratory crisis, renewing concerns about the prognosis for the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Vatican said on Friday night that Francis, who is 88 and has a history of respiratory ailments, inhaled his vomit after a coughing fit, causing a “the worsening of the respiratory picture,” and requiring aspiration.
It said that the crisis occurred early Friday afternoon, after a morning spent of respiratory physiotherapy and prayer in the chapel, and he required “noninvasive” ventilation — meaning he was not intubated, which requires sedation, and that he remained “alert and conscious at all times.”
The Vatican added that the pope’s doctors said it would take 24 to 48 hours to determine whether the crisis had worsened the pope’s condition.
Francis is now using a mask covering his mouth and nose to help him breathe, as he has at other points in stay at Gemelli Hospital in Rome. The Vatican said Francis was cooperating “with therapeutic maneuvers,” and was in “good spirits.”
The pope was admitted to the hospital with bronchitis and later, pneumonia was diagnosed. He had a respiratory crisis last Saturday that he appeared to have overcome, and medical bulletins in recent days were cautiously upbeat, though doctors had said he was not out of danger. In recent days doctors had said that Francis was no longer in “critical condition,” but that his situation was “complex.”
“It’s a setback,” Austen Ivereigh, Pope Francis’ biographer, wrote on X, adding “I was getting too confident. Please keep up prayers.”
Others shared his concern.
“Given his age, and given that he is in such a state, we must be worried,” Father Felicien Abengalo, a priest in Rome, said on Friday. “His illness is not a minor illness.”
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