Pope, who is in the hospital, releases audio message
Pope Francis spent three weeks hospitalized with double pneumonia on Friday, the Vatican said he was “stable” but in his first audio message he sounded weak and breathless.
The 88-year-old pope has not been seen in public since his admission to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14, and he has suffered a number of respiratory crises — most recently on Monday.
With concerns growing and increasingly lurid speculation circulating online, the Holy See released a brief audio message that day recorded by Francis, the first time his voice has been heard in weeks.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart prayers for my health from the Square. From here I accompany you,” he said in a frail voice, panting and dragging words, some of which disappeared into silence.
“God bless you and protect you, Virgin. Thank you,” the Argentine said, in his native Spanish.
The message was read in Saint Peter’s Square, where prayers have been offered every night for the pope, and applause rang out from the hundreds of pilgrims présent.
“We were very pleased he could speak,” said a 76-year-old English pilgrim in Italy to celebrate the 2025 Jubilee holy year festivities, John Maloney.
“It’s a positive sign he is actually able to talk,” he told AFP, adding: “He has a long road so he’s in the hands of God.”
But for Claudia Bianchi, 50, an Italian from Rome, “it struck me to hear him so tired”.
‘Good sign’
The pope’s message graced the front page of many of Italy’s newspapers, reporting that it was an effort by the Vatican to counter fake news about the pontiff’s s deterioration or even death.
They remarked on the weakness of his voice, with the Corriere della Sera newspaper describing it as “pained”.
“It was a good sign, so we are hopeful that he still has the energy to speak. And he seems to always want to be with us,” Alessandra Dalboni, a 53-year-old local from Rome, told AFP on Thursday evening.
The Vatican had said earlier on Thursday that Francis, the pontiff who next week will have been in office for 12 years, was “stable”, without a repeat of Monday’s respiratory failure.
It said “considering the stability of the clinical picture” there would be no medical bulletin on Friday evening, as had been issued on previous days.
The next is due on Saturday.
In a departure from the past, when there was little such transparency, the Vatican has published a morning update each day about how the pope had slept, then followed that in the evenings with a more detailed medical bulletin.
On Friday morning, it gave its usual short update, saying Francis “passed a calm night and woke up shortly after 8am.
On Thursday night, the Vatican said he had continued with his breathing exercises and physiotherapy, had no fever and had managed to do a little work.
Prognosis reserved
However, “the doctors are still maintaining a reserved prognosis,” it said, meaning they will not speculate on how his condition is likely to evolve.
During past hospitalizations, the head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics had been seen on the Gemelli balcony for his Sunday Angelus prayer.
But he hasn’t been at the last three, and no announcement has yet been made about whether he will appear this weekend.
The pope has had various health matters in recent years, from undergoing colon surgery in 2021 to having an operation in 2023 to address a hernia, but this is the longest and most serious hospital stay of his papacy.
He was first diagnosed with bronchitis and later pneumonia in both lungs, and has had three days of respiratory crisis.
On Feb 22, he experienced a “prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis” and on Feb. 28 “an isolated crisis of bronchospasm” — a tightening of the muscles that line the airways in the lungs.
On Monday March 3, Francis “had two episodes of acute respiratory failure, caused by a large accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm”, the Vatican said.
Francis’s health has frequently prompted speculation, especially among his critics, that he might resign like his predecessor, Benedict XVI.