Pope Francis has been hospitalised with a respiratory infection, the Vatican has confirmed. The Pope, who is 86, was reportedly suffering from a condition which returned earlier this year.
The only details released confirmed that the pontiff's visit to the Gemelli hospital was "previously scheduled." Pope Francis spent 10 days at the Gemelli hospital in July 2021 following surgery for an intestinal narrowing. On that occasion he had 33cm of his colon removed.
He said soon after that he had recovered fully and could eat normally. But in a January 24 interview with The Associated Press said the diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall, had "returned", reports MirrorOnline.
However, the Pope also said he was in good shape and that a slight bone fracture in his knee from a fall had healed without surgery and was ready to get on with his agenda.
He said: "I’m in good health. For my age, I’m normal.
"I might die tomorrow, but it’s under control. I’m in good health."
He also indicated he has no plans to resign, although if he were to step down he reiterated that he would want to be called “bishop emeritus of Rome,” rather than “pope emeritus,” the title given his predecessor, Benedict XVI. In the interview, he said it was premature to “regularise or regulate” papal retirements because the Vatican had too little experience upon which to draw.
Benedict XVI died on New Year's Eve 2022, after nearly a decade of retirement. He was the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years.
He said Benedict’s decision to live in a converted monastery in the Vatican Gardens was a “good intermediate solution”, but said future retired popes might want to choose a different course.
He told AP: “He was still ‘enslaved’ as a pope, no? Of the vision of a pope, of a system. ‘Slave’ in the good sense of the word: in that, he wasn’t completely free, as he would have liked to have returned to his Germany and continued studying theology.”
