Pope Francis had a quiet night in a hospital, the Vatican said yesterday, the morning after revealing the 88-year-old was in a “critical” condition following a prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis while being treated for pneumonia and a complex lung infection.
“The night passed peacefully, the pope rested,” the Holy See said in a short update.
On Saturday night, the Vatican said the pope received “high flows” of oxygen to help him breathe, as well as blood transfusions after tests showed low counts of platelets, which are needed for clotting.
Photo: Reuters
“The Holy Father’s condition continues to be critical, therefore, as explained yesterday [on Friday], the pope is not out of danger,” the statement said.
It was the first time “critical” had been used in a written statement to describe Francis’ condition since he was hospitalized on Feb. 14.
The statement also said that the pontiff “continues to be alert and spent the day in an armchair, although in more pain than yesterday.”
Doctors declined to offer a prognosis, saying it was “reserved,” adding that Francis’ condition is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and pre-existing lung disease.
They have said that the main threat facing Francis would be the onset of sepsis, a serious infection of the blood that can occur as a complication of pneumonia.
The Vatican earlier confirmed the Argentine pontiff would not deliver his usual weekly Angelus prayer yesterday, saying the text would be published, as it was the previous weekend.
As of Friday, there was no evidence of any sepsis, and Francis was responding to the drugs he was taking, the pope’s medical team said in their first in-depth update on the pope’s condition.
Francis, who has chronic lung disease and is prone to bronchitis in winter, was admitted to Gemelli University Hospital after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened.
“Sepsis, with his respiratory problems and his age, would be really difficult to get out of,” Sergio Alfieri, the head of medicine and surgery at Gemelli, told a news conference on Friday.
“The English say ‘knock on wood,’ we say ‘touch iron.’ Everyone touch what they want,” he said as he tapped the microphone. “But this is the real risk in these cases: that these germs pass to the bloodstream.”
“He knows he’s in danger,” Alfieri added. “And he told us to convey that.”
Meanwhile, the Vatican hierarchy went on the defensive to tamp down rumors and speculation that Francis might resign. There is no provision in canon law for what to do if a pope becomes incapacitated.
Francis has said that he has written a letter of resignation that would be invoked if he were medically incapable of making such a decision. The pope remains fully conscious, alert, eating and working.
Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin told Italy’s Corriere della Sera daily that such discussion was normal, but added that he he would not enter into “useless speculation.”
“Now we are thinking about the health of the Holy Father, his recovery, his return to the Vatican: These are the only things that matter,” the cardinal said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS