Pope Francis ‘not out of danger yet,’ doctors say in first news conference

Doctors attending Pope Francis said the pontiff would likely remain hospitalized for at least another week, seeking to reassure the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Catholics that “the pope is fine” and “working,” though he remains in significant danger as he fights a bout of double pneumonia.

“He is much better now than when he arrived, but it can all change in one day; he is still receiving a significant amount of drugs,” said Sergio Alfieri, a surgeon at Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic and one of the pope’s attending physicians.

Luigi Carbone, one of the pope’s personal doctors, added: “He’s not out of danger yet. Like all fragile patients, there is always a fine balance. It takes only a little for that balance to be upset, so right now it’s hard to talk about the timing.”

Alfieri continued: “The holy father, who has a brain superior to everyone here, knows that he’s in danger. So what can happen is that these germs that are currently localized the respiratory pathways and lungs, should they, regardless of all the treatments, get into the blood, any patient would then face a sepsis, and a sepsis could prove …”

“Fatal,” Carbone said.

The Vatican has struggled to tamp down rumors in the Italian press and within medical circles in Rome that the pope’s health was deteriorating rapidly. The Vatican’s recent and brief updates on his health have signaled cautious optimism, noting “slight” improvements in his condition.

Cardinals have been pelted with questions about whether Francis would retire. Some Catholic leaders and commentators have suggested he would, if his condition were severe enough. Others insist he will follow the model of Pope John Paul II and push himself to the very end, be it sooner or later.

Vatican officials have privately acknowledged that Francis resisted checking himself into the hospital for days, despite the urging of Vatican medical staff and aides. Before this bout with pneumonia, he had tirelessly thrown himself into events related to the Catholic jubilee that is bringing millions of pilgrims to Rome this year.

One senior Vatican official and Francis ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the pope’s health, said Francis was expected to remain hospitalized through early March, which would amount to his longest hospital stay since becoming pope in 2013. Asked why the pontiff had declined hospitalization for so long, the official shrugged and said: “The pope is complex. He can be difficult.”

Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a result of an infection in his youth, was admitted to Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic hospital Friday after another in a series of battles with bronchitis. Preliminary tests indicated that he had a respiratory tract infection and was running a slight fever as he underwent treatment. The Vatican described his condition as “complex” – a word that set off alarm bells when deployed by an institution that is typically exceedingly cautions in describing the health of the pope.

Late Tuesday, however, the Vatican disclosed that a CAT scan showed he had pneumonia in both lungs. A chest X-ray showed he had developed a polymicrobial infection that arose from asthmatic bronchitis and bronchiectasis, a condition in which the airways widen, leading to a buildup of excess mucus that can make the lungs more vulnerable to infection. He was undergoing antibiotic cortisone therapy, the Vatican said.

Though remaining extremely active and keeping a busy agenda, Francis has suffered from health issues and reduced mobility for years. This hospitalization is his fourth as pope.

In 2021, he spent 10 days at Gemelli Polyclinic after having 13 inches of his colon removed. In March 2023, he was hospitalized for three days and treated for acute bronchitis after feeling a sharp pain in his chest and having trouble breathing. Francis later said he had pneumonia. He also had abdominal surgery in June 2023 to remove scar tissue and repair a hernia.

Francis has fallen and injured himself twice in recent months: first in December, when he appeared with a bruise on his chin at a ceremony to install 21 new cardinals, and again in January, when he injured his right arm.

He had appeared bloated and weak in the days before his latest admission, often struggling to speak and passing to others tasks that involved his reading aloud.