VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — As Pope Francis fast approaches his 30th day in the hospital, questions continue to be raised about when he might be discharged and what the Vatican will look like in the meantime.
As of Monday, March 10 the Pope has been in the hospital for 24 full days. His prognosis remains cautiously guarded or “reserved” by the medical team treating him, as it has been since the respiratory crisis he suffered on February 22.
Doctors treating Francis at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital do not wish to publicly announce a timeline for the Pope’s emergence from hospital, though at the only press conference they gave – February 21 – they told journalists that they did expect him to return to the Vatican.
He is currently using an oxygen mask overnight, and then availing of high-flow nasal cannulas during the day, as he battles with bronchitis and double pneumonia. No suggestion was given by the Vatican that Francis was using either such respiratory aid in the Casa Santa Martha prior to his admission.
But the audio file played on Thursday, March 6 revealed the Pope’s voice and wider condition to be notably weak and frail. Certainly – although it was a move to remind the College of Cardinals that he was very much still here – it was not the voice of a man who is soon to be ready for a hospital discharge back to the Vatican.
MAR 6 evening: Vatican tonight plays a brief audio file recording of Pope Francis thanking Catholics for their prayers for him
No images or recordings of any kind have previously emerged since his Feb 14 hospitalization
Breathing is notably labored
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— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) March 6, 2025
So what exactly ought we to expect?
At 24 days, Francis’ hospitalization is the third longest of a pope, with Pope John Paul II having the longest and second-longest stays. The Polish pope was hospitalized in the Gemelli for 55 days in summer of 1981 with a fever and post-op complications following his earlier 22-day hospitalization that same year after his attempted assassination. Then in 1994 he spent 28 days in the Gemelli.
John Paul II famously quipped that the Gemelli was “Vatican III” due to the amount of time he spent there throughout his pontificate.
Though Pope Francis is nowhere near John Paul II’s amassed total, he is nevertheless fast approaching 28 days in the hospital himself, a marker which he will reach this Friday. Once he does so, it will become the second longest papal hospitalization.
Yet even though he has been described as “stable” since March 4, doctors are always exceptionally cautious to add that this stability is in the context of a “complex” medical scenario.
On March 1, Ansa News Agency reported that one of the country’s leading lung experts – though who is not treating the Pope – suggested that following Francis’ Feb. 28 respiratory crisis it could be up to a week to determine a clear medical prognosis. Stefano Nardini, former president of the Italian Society of Pneumology, suggested to Ansa that a recovery for Francis could take some months.
That clear prognosis, if it has been determined, has certainly not been made public – a fact surely further delayed by the double respiratory failure Francis suffered on March 3.
It certainly seems that if Francis is to return to the Vatican, it could not be for several weeks at the earliest. Even this conservative estimate assumes that he remains free from any further breathing crises.
In the meantime, Francis holds a quasi-papal court from the papal apartment on the Gemelli’s 10th floor. The personnel around him are but few, including his two secretaries.
The Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin has visited him just three times. Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, as the “sostituto,” has visited Francis twice, and it is Parolin and Peña Parra who will have the chief task of ensuring daily life in the Curia and the wider Church continues.
Not surprisingly, a hospitalized pope has meant the activity of the Roman Curia has slowed, as attested to by Vatican insiders. Even Cardinal Arthur Roche – prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) – noted that while “work goes on” it is much quieter without Francis.
There is added to all this the growing sense of a potential conclave in the not too distant future, and it is a specter which looms larger with every passing day Francis remains in the hospital. Certainly, this was sensed by the hungry international media who have flocked to Rome in large numbers and set up camp outside the hospital and the Vatican.
Serving only to fuel the fire of this image of a seriously ill pontiff – and thus a possible conclave – have been the nightly Rosaries in St. Peter’s Square, which began February 24 after a very bad weekend for Francis’ health. Parolin made his first visit to the Pope earlier that day, and then in the evening the cardinal became the first of many to lead the Rosary in the Square.
With Curia cardinals present in large numbers, analysts’ focus has quietly but naturally turned towards examining each cardinal who leads the Rosary with the view of whether they could be papabile or not.
But here too a decision will have to be made.
Papal almoner Cardinal Konrad Krajewski said last week that the Rosaries would continue until Francis returns to the Vatican. A pious and notably loyal statement indeed, but one that perhaps will have to be amended if Francis remains in the hospital for many weeks hence. Already indication has been given by Vatican sources that after this week a different arrangement will be made for the Rosary – as Francis completes his fourth week in the Gemelli.
While a lengthy hospitalization might create an awkward situation for those who have to decide what to do about continuing the nightly Rosary, it certainly lends fuel to the already stoked fire of the secular mass media, who regularly raise the question of a papal resignation.
At what point will Francis resign, comes the question, particularly if he remains hospitalized for weeks on end or if he is physically incapable? The disastrous precedent set so recently by Pope Benedict XVI is, without doubt, almost completely to blame for such a question even being on people’s lips.
However, here they are likely to be disappointed. Though he has entertained the question of resignation in interviews over the years, Francis will never resign. The question has been rejected by his cardinal-aides and by those close to him, with sources observing that for him the papacy is everything.
But while days turn into weeks, the peculiar feeling currently hanging over the Vatican is hard to shake. Work has slowed, but carries on; the Pope is notably ill, but also “stable”; the Pope is attending to work duties, but also so desperately short of oxygen that he struggles to record a 30-second audio message.
Sunday’s Jubilee Mass saw the oddity of the papal banner hung from the Vatican loggia, normally indicative of the Pope’s presence presiding over a Mass for a large event. Of course, Francis was not there, but instead in his Gemelli suite. So the Pope is also here, but not here.
Francis’ pontificate has been heavily focused on power and image. Providing he has the physical ability to do so, he will certainly be ensuring that his hospitalization is also run in conformity with those two aspects also.
And so whether they admit it or not, everyone is daily and silently watching, waiting, almost expecting significant news about the pope’s health. Nothing is clear or certain, apart from the fact that death comes to us all at some point, and there is perhaps no man who receives a more frenzied attention in his days of frailty than the Roman Pontiff.
Given this finite nature of life, Catholics are urged – as always, but especially now – to pray for the Pope’s spiritual health.