“The Pope is not out of danger,” his doctors warned at a press conference held in the late afternoon at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome on February 21, 2025. Pope Francis, hospitalized on February 14 due to a respiratory infection, will have a long period of convalescence, they said.
Now a week after the Pontiff was hospitalized, his doctors took the time to explain the Argentine pope’s state of health to the many journalists who had come to Gemelli. The 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church is suffering from pneumonia affecting both his lungs. “The pope knows he is in danger,” they admitted during the conference.
“Is he out of danger? No, he is not out of danger. But if you ask us: ‘Is he in danger of death?’ The answer is ‘No’,” assured Professor Sergio Alfieri, the Pope’s surgeon at Gemelli. For nearly 45 minutes he and Luigi Carbone, the Pope’s personal physician at the Vatican, answered questions from the media.
“Let’s be clear: the Pope is not connected to any machine. As needed, when it is useful, he [receives] a little oxygen, which helps him, for example, when he has asthma attacks,” they explained, assuring that the Pope was breathing spontaneously and eating normally.
This morning, the Pope also went to pray in the chapel of his apartment at Gemelli, a sign that his condition is not critical.
The difficulty of dosing the treatment
However, not denying the “fragility” of their patient, who suffers from a “chronic pathology” of the respiratory tract, they assured that the Pope did not want to “hide anything” about his state of health. He also gives his consent for the daily health bulletins to be issued.
The doctors spoke of a “significant infection, with many microbes” and of the “bilateral pneumonia” diagnosed at the beginning of the week. They pointed out that the Pope already does not walk much – due to his knee problems – and that he is 88 years old.
During the conference, they also opened up about the difficulties in finding the right treatment. “It is not always easy to dose the therapies: to help him breathe, you give him a little cortisone, but cortisone lowers the immune defenses, makes blood sugar levels rise, and that is a breeding ground for infections,” they explained, for example.
In the space of a week, the Holy See’s press releases on the Pope’s state of health announced two changes to his treatment, a sign of the difficulty in providing the best possible care for the pontiff.
Risk of sepsis raised
In response to journalists’ questions about the dangers currently threatening the Pope’s health, the doctors raised the risk of sepsis, with “germs located in the respiratory tract of the lungs” passing into the blood.
“With his respiratory problem and his age, it could be difficult to recover,” they warned, while assuring that the Pope does not have sepsis now. The two doctors also made no secret of the fact that the Pope was taking “a significant amount of medication.”
Respect his privacy
When asked about the fact that the Holy See had not released any photos of the Pontiff since his hospitalization, Professor Alfieri asked journalists to respect his privacy.
“Do we want a photo of a pope in his pajamas in the newspapers? […] Let’s respect his privacy. When he wants to show himself, he will show himself, but he will be dressed like a pope,” he insisted.
As for the visit last Wednesday of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgio Meloni, the doctors explained that “like any patient with polymicrobial infection and bilateral pneumonia, he cannot receive visitors without protection.”
The duration of the convalescence
The Pope’s convalescence in hospital will last “at least the whole of next week,” said the doctors, who did not venture a guess as to a release date.
Professor Sergio Aflieri agreed that the head of the Catholic Church would remain at Gemelli as long as he needed hospital therapy.
Treatment will then have to continue at his residence under the responsibility of his nurse Massimiliano Strappetti.
“We do not consider it prudent for him to return quickly to Casa Santa Marta because we know he will start doing what he did before,” they said.
Pope Francis is known for not taking it easy on himself by going to numerous daily appointments despite his doctors’ warnings. On the day of his hospitalization, Friday, February 14, he had honored five appointments. “He’s not really an octogenarian,” commented Dr. Alfieri, explaining that the Pope behaves like a man in his 50s or 60s.
Since February 14, all of the Pope’s appointments have been canceled. This weekend, he was supposed to celebrate the Jubilee of Deacons and ordain around 20 new deacons. The Vatican has not yet made a decision on whether or not the pontiff will recite the Angelus on Sunday from the hospital balcony. Last Sunday, the Pope decided against it.
And today we celebrate...