During the days after the Vatican announced on February 6 that Pope Francis had bronchitis and restricted his activities to his residence, he began holding multiple private audiences with a group of nuns, pilgrims and foundation leaders every day.
On February 9, he presided over an outdoor mass at St. Peter’s Square, where the wind was so strong that his white Zucchetto blew away from his head. He couldn’t fulfill his opinion, passed it to his assistant and said, “It’s hard for me to breathe.”
Three days later, among his weekly Wednesday audience, the sick Pope read his speech. But then he shook hands with dozens of bishops, many tending to whisper greetings and taking pictures with Spanish faithful Milan military recruits and nuns from Mother Teresa’s orders.
After those two days, Francis was taken to the hospital, and the doctor said a complex medical condition that turned into pneumonia in both his lungs.
Many people who knew him said in an interview that Francis was driven by a sense of mission and discipline born from his early training, basically working in the hospital.
After weeks of rituals and audiences, both private and public, he is bedridden now, which only begins in December 2025, a belief in sin that takes place in a quarter of a century each year, A year of regret and forgiveness.
But doctors, biographers and Vatican observers say, but the papal’s hard timeline (which would drain anyone, not to mention an 88-year-old with a range of health problems – aligns with Francis’ personality, and with He is consistent with his vision for the Pope.
“The Pope is very concerned about the church, so it’s clear that he puts the church first,” Dr. Luigi Carbone, the Vatican’s personal doctor, told reporters at a hospital briefing on Friday.
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, another doctor of the pope, added: “He does not retreat because he is very generous, so he is tired.”
Francis became Pope later in his life – he was 76 years old – and determined to make the most of the career because he doubted that he would not hold the position for a long time. A year later, he told reporters that he thought he would be the pope for two or three years and then “go to his father’s house.”
This prediction is obviously wrong. Instead, he set up a schedule – wake up by 5 o’clock and wake up at his desk to solve the work of the whole day – Nelson Castro is The Health of the Pope The author of the book “Crazy”. Just last September, Francis made the longest and most complex trip during his tenure: an 11-day, four-country tour in the Asia-Pacific region.
“For Francis, it’s all or nothing,” said Austen Ivereigh, a Catholic commentator and pope biographer. Francis believes that this is the basic dimension of people’s constant contact with him,” said Austen Ivereigh. ”, due to health reasons, there is no time to access it.
“His primary concern is not to extend his lifespan, his primary concern is to exercise the Pope in a way he thinks it must be exercised, which is all 100 percent,” Ivereigh said.
“He has a crazy agenda,” said another biographer, Elisabetta Piqué, a journalist in the United States. In addition to the formal morning schedule, he had a parallel, equally complete agenda in the afternoon. “He always said I will have time to rest in the next world,” she said.
Another biographer, Fabio Marchese Ragona, said Francis’ boarding school was attended by a child and run by a Salesian religious congregation, which he later instilled into him by the Jesuit order he joined in 1958. . .
He said Francis told him that he was “most important for discipline” and that he had joined the Jesuits and that the commitment was kept when he arrived, just like making an appointment in advance.
Carlo Musso, of Hope, who worked with Francis, published an autobiography last month, noted: “The word he likes most, the advice I remember most is ” Forward.” He can move forward even if he looks back.”
Those who know Francis say he has the resistance to rest even due to sciatica, poor knees or frequent bronchial distress. When he was young, his right upper lobe was removed, and in the winter, he suffered from flu and bronchitis.
“He is so stubborn; he is Testardo. He added that the Pope has admitted to being a “very difficult patient.”
The pope once told him that he likes to distance himself from doctors, and Dr. Castro said: “It means he wants to decide what he can and can’t do.
Mr Ivereigh said Francis admitted that one of his “big mistakes” was stubbornness. “He’s very strong and doesn’t easily hear his advice on reducing things,” he said.
Mr. Musso noted that Francis was drawing audiences with the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, the President of CNN, and representatives of charities working in Puerto Rico, a few hours before he was taken to the hospital. “He has a great ability to work,” he said.
Musso added that the pope did not disappear during the summer vacation. Ms Piqué said the habit was a trouble for many Vatican employees. His last real vacation was in 1975, Francis himself said in his autobiography “Hope.”
John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in the summer of the Pope’s residence in Castel Gandolfo, although the former also chose to be in northern Italy mountain accommodation.
Francesco Antonio Grana, a Vatican journalist at the Roman Daily Il Fatto quotidiano, said that it would be useless to surround Francis with the “yes man” who was obsessed with the pope.
“This kind of hospitalization could have been avoided,” Grana said.
“I prefer a living pope than a dead pope because he has made more commitment to his agenda,” he added. “With Donald Trump in the White House, the world needs a The living and fighting pope.”
The same week he went to the hospital, Francis wrote an open letter to the bishop in the United States criticizing President Trump’s policy of mass deportation of immigrants, and he has supported Mr. Trump on issues such as climate change.
Francis’s workload was not only daunting, but also brought him into contact with hundreds of people who had the potential to spread the disease. “So, when he has a cold or bronchitis, maybe he should be more careful, maybe he will slow down a little and take care of himself,” he added.
There are several signs that the Pope may be ready to slow down.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Francis at the hospital on Wednesday. Milan Daily Corriere Della Sera wrote in a report at the meeting that Francis complained to the Prime Minister: “The doctor said I must take a break,” “I have to be careful of my health or I will go straight to heaven.”
In a Friday’s press conference, Francis’ doctor made it clear that he could stay in the hospital as long as he needed treatment, rather than bringing him home, his residence in Casa Santa Marta.
“We think it’s prudent,” Dr. Alfieri said. “If we brought him to Santa Mada, he would start working as before, and we know that.”
