The Vatican on Tuesday cancelled the Pope’s audience over the weekend, delegating others to cover Pope Francis as the 88-year-old Pope remains hospitalized with a multifaceted respiratory infection.
The cancellation dampened the upcoming event of the Vatican’s Great Holy Year, a former quarter-century Catholicism celebration. The Holy Year, which was expected to attract around 30 million people to Rome, is packed with special pope audiences and masses throughout 2025.
Francis was admitted to Gemeri Hospital in Rome in “fair” on Friday after a week-long bronchitis match worsened. On Monday, medical personnel determined he was suffering from a polymicrobial respiratory infection. This meant that a mixture of viruses, bacteria, and possibly other organisms had settled in his breathing tract. The Vatican has not shown how long he will remain hospitalized, but he simply says that treatment for such a “complex clinical picture” requires a “appropriate” stay.
Francis once again had a peaceful night, had breakfast and read the newspaper on Tuesday morning, said Matteo Bruni, a Vatican spokesman. A more detailed medical update was expected later.
On Monday, Francis resumed some kind of work and called Gaza City Parish daily to check in the Catholic community.
This Holy Year weekend was dedicated to the deacon, the ministry, the necessary step for men preparing to become priests. Francis had an unrelated audience on Saturday and was supposed to ordained butler during Sunday’s Mass. On Tuesday, the Vatican announced that his audience had been cancelled and the Archbishop, organizing the Jubilee, would celebrate the Mass. It is a similar arrangement that the Vatican had to settle a cardinal where town artists presided over the weekend, with their special masses.
The next jubilee event, usually on the calendar, including the Pope, is the weekend of March 8-9, dedicated to volunteers.
As a young man, Francis removed part of one lung after a pulmonary infection, making him more likely to have a bronchitis attack in the winter. He has admitted in the past that he is a non-compliant patient, and even his close Vatican aides, even after his bronchitis was diagnosed, he pushed himself too much. He says that.
He refused to mock his busy schedule, ignored medical advice to stay indoors during the chilly Roman winters, and was struggling to breathe as he passed through the outdoor Jubilee Mass on February 9th. Despite this, he insisted that he was sitting for the military.
Francis’ hospitalization this year has been on the sidelines for longer than his 2023 hospitalization with pneumonia.
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