Pope Francis waved from the balcony of his Rome medical center before he was discharged from hospital and returned back to the Vatican on March 23. (Video: Reuters)
ROME — Pope Francis waved, gave a thumbs-up and a gesture of blessing on the balcony of his Rome medical center to a throng of well-wishers before his hospital discharge and return to the Vatican on Sunday, offering the first live glimpse of the pontiff following his five-week hospitalization.
From a fifth-floor window of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic, Francis, adorned in gleaming papal white, appeared mostly somber as he briefly greeted a crowd that chanted his name and cheered. He seemed alert following the worst health crisis of his papacy, at one point shaking his head to an aide whispering in his ear. But he appeared to struggle as he lifted his arm to wave, and labored for breath as he spoke. He cracked a smile as he gestured to a woman in the crowd. “I see a lady there with yellow flowers,” he said into a microphone. His appearance was broadcast live to large screens in St. Peter’s Square.
Francis gave what amounted to a silent benediction for his regular Sunday prayer, known as the Angelus. It underscored his weakened condition and stood in sharp contrast to a July Sunday in 2021, when the pope, then recovering from colon surgery at the same hospital, had been strong enough to read the prayer aloud.
The Vatican had distributed one photo during this hospitalization — taken from the back, his face unseen. But the Sunday appearance was the first chance for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics to see their spiritual leader following his desperate battle with double pneumonia, which included two respiratory episodes that almost cost him his life.
Shortly after his appearance on the balcony, Francis departed for a doctor-ordered convalescence of at least two months at his Vatican City boardinghouse, waving from the window as his slow-moving white Fiat as it navigated the streets of Rome.
“During this long period of recovery, I have had the opportunity to experience the Lord’s patience,” Francis said in a written Angelus text distributed by the Vatican Sunday. “This trusting patience, anchored in God’s never-failing love, is truly necessary in our lives, especially when facing the most difficult and painful situations,” he added.
The worst health crisis of Francis’s papacy sparked a reality check in the Catholic church, the world’s largest Christian faith, leading to accelerated talk a papal succession once seen as potentially years away. The Vatican, breaking with a tradition of closely guarding details of a sitting pope’s health, offered exceedingly detailed health updates at Francis’s own behest, a change that led to an emotional roller coaster as Francis’s health seesawed.
His bout with double pneumonia also provoked exceedingly public speculation by some senior clerics that the 88-year-old pope could succumb to his battle against the illness. Francis, no stranger to being the target of social media missives, faced a deluge from conspiracy theorists — some of whom sought spread rumors that the pope was already dead.
Still, even with his release, what comes next is a wild card. Prior to his illness, Francis was facing pushback from traditionalists on several fronts, including his effort to elevate women to higher administrative roles with the Holy See and to challenge the second Trump administration over its sweeping campaign against migrants. But he will return to the Vatican as an even frailer leader, thrusting the Catholic church into period of uncertainty as it navigates his convalescence.
In a church in which devout Catholics maintain deeply symbolic connections to the words and deeds of the pope, Francis may offer extremely limited utterances, sightings and interactions with the faithful during the prologue recovery period — one which comes during a jubilee year that is bringing millions of pilgrims to Rome. Held every 25 years, jubilees, a Catholic tradition dating to the year 1300, lure the faithful to designated holy sites — including the Holy See — for acts of reconciliation, renewal and absolution.
Following weeks of mechanical ventilation, Francis, his doctors have said, will require extensive therapy simply to regain the ability to speak as he did before his hospitalization. Still, this physicians have also sought to express cautious optimism, saying Francis should be able to return to some normal activities within a “short time,” and noting he has already been working during his hospitalization. However, to shield his health, he will not be immediately able to resume working with “groups of people,” or preside over certain “important commitments.”
He will also still require the use of supplemental oxygen and respiratory and physical therapy once released, with care set be provided within the confines of his private rooms at Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican City boardinghouse. While the most severe lung infections have been cured, he is still carrying higher viral loads and will require further treatment with drugs, his doctors said.
Andrea Trovè, a 50-year-old respiratory diseases specialist in Rome who is not treating the pope but has been following the health updates, painted a starker picture. He interpreted the words used by Francis’s doctors — “protected discharge” — as meaning a hospital setting will effectively be recreated in the pope’s private quarters, including access to high-flow oxygen as needed.
The two-month rest period being prescribed, Trovè said, also suggests “that beyond the acute event, reductions in motor, respiratory, perhaps even neurocognitive faculties, are significant.”
At the very least, Francis’s condition now suggests a demarcation point in his papacy. Already, he relied on wheelchairs and canes, and often calling on surrogates to deliver public comments and readings. His dependence on others could now be even more pronounced, as will the risk to a pontiff who had part of one lung removed in his youth and was susceptible to bronchial infections before his current crisis.
Some experts compared the uncertainty around Francis’s health now to the recovery of Pope John Paul II following his assassination attempt in 1981 — though, they note, John Paul was a much younger man at the time of his shooting.
“Certainly, this new post-hospitalization phase will be a novel stage of his papacy,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University. “As to what that may entail, nobody knows. It’s a truly unchartered territory with a pope forced away from the public.”
The pope, those close to him note, refused entreaties from his doctors for earlier hospitalization even though he was suffering for days with respiratory crisis before his admittance on Feb. 14. Some observers fear Francis, who has been known to push himself to exhaustion, may be reluctant now to commit to a strict period of rest, potentially to the determent of his health.
“The pope needs to slow down and rest if he is going to recover, but he does not want to. He is not going to be able to do everything he did before,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, an American priest who has written several books about the inner workings of the Catholic Church.
Austen Ivereigh, the pope’s biographer, said it would be wrong to dismiss the prospect of a fertile papacy despite Francis’s fragility. He noted that Francis managed to eke out a “rich period” during the covid lockdown of 2020-2021, when he could no longer travel or meet with people. During the pandemic, Francis authored a book with Ivereigh, and pressed forward with planning for two major Vatican City summits in 2023 and 2024.
“St Paul said when I am weak, then I am strong: he meant that embracing his own limits created space for God to act,” Ivereigh said. “I think we’ll see the same now with Francis. His mind is fine, and he can use his pen, and can pray. What more does he need?”