Pope marks week in hospital amid questions over future

AFP | Rome

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Pope Francis marked a week in hospital with pneumonia yesterday, as speculation grew over the 88-year-old’s ability to continue leading the Catholic Church.

Francis, admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital with breathing difficulties, has slightly improved over the past couple of days despite pneumonia in both lungs, according to the Vatican.

“The night went well. This morning Pope Francis got up and had breakfast,” it said in a regular morning briefing yesterday, adding that the next update would come earlier than usual, at around 5:30 pm (1630 GMT).

But that has not dampened questions over the future of a leader with a punishing domestic and international schedule who has been increasingly plagued by health issues in recent years.

Francis has disappeared from public view since his admittance to a special papal suite on the 10th floor of the Gemelli.

The Vatican said he is cheerful and has been alternating rest with reading, but has yet to publish the standard photographs of him in hospital that have marked his previous stays, fuelling rumours.

“I know that some out there say my time has come, they are always bringing me bad luck!” Francis is reported by Italian media to have quipped to Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni when she visited him on Thursday.

The Argentine is no stranger to the plotting and scheming his health woes inevitably prompt among those keen to get their man in as next pope.

After undergoing colon surgery in 2021, he joked to a group of Jesuits that “I’m still alive. Even though some wanted me dead”. “They were preparing the conclave”, he said, in reference to the meeting of cardinals to elect a new pope after a death or resignation.