A weak and fragile Pope Francis On Sunday, he returned home to the Vatican after surviving a fatal five -week fight of pneumonia, making a surprise stop in his favorite basilica on the way back before starting two months of rest and prescribed recovery.
The procession bearing the 88 -year -old Pope entered the Porte de Perugino in the city of the Vatican, and Francis was seen in the front passenger seat carrying nasal tubes to give it additional oxygen.
During the trip to the Gemelli hospital, Francis made a slight detour to bring him to the Basilica St. Mary Major, where his favorite icon of Madonna is located and where he will always pray after a foreign visit. Francis did not get out of the car, but handed over a bouquet of flowers to the cardinal to place in front of the Romani Salus Populi icon, a Byzantine style painting on wood venerated by the Romans.
Before leaving the hospital, Francis gave a boost and recognized the crowd after falling on the balcony overlooking the main entrance. Hundreds of people gathered a brilliant on Sunday morning to say goodbye.
“I see this woman with the yellow flowers. Brava! ” A tired and swollen Francis said. He gave a weak sign of the cross before being returned inside.
Pope Francis acts when he appears in a window of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome on Sunday March 23, 2025, where he was treated for bronchitis and bilateral pneumonia since February 14.
AP photo / Domenico Stinellis
Songs of “viva he dad!” And “Papa Francesco” broke out of the crowd, which included patients who had been rolled outside just to catch his brief appearance.
Doctors, who announced his planned release at a press conference on Saturday evening, said he needed two months of rest and convalescence, during which he should refrain from meeting large groups of people or to manage. But they finally said that he should be able to resume all his normal activities.
His return home, after the longest hospitalization of his 12 -year papacy and the second longer in recent papal history, brought a tangible relief to the Vatican and to the Catholic faithful who impatiently followed 38 days of high and medical at the French and to wonder if Francis would do it.
“Today, I feel a great joy,” said Dr. Rossella Russomando, a doctor of salt who did not treat Francis but was in Gemelli on Sunday. “This is the demonstration that all our prayers, all the prayers of the rosary around the world, brought this grace.”
On Sunday of the Vatican, the pilgrims flocked as they did all year round at the Saint-Pierre basilica to participate in the Holy 2025 year. They invaded Place Saint-Pierre and progressed through the holy door in groups, while large television screens on the square were activated to broadcast live from the Francis hospital.
No special arrangement was taken at the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican hotel next to the Basilica where Francis lives in a two -room suite on the second floor. Francis will have access to additional oxygen and medical care 24 hours a day if necessary, although his personal doctor, Dr. Luigi Carbon, said that he hoped that Francis would gradually need less and less assistance while respecting his lungs.
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Although pneumonia infection has been successfully treated, Francis will continue to take oral drugs for a while to treat fungal infection in his lungs and continue his respiratory and physical physiotherapy.
“For three or four days, he asked when he can go home, so he is very happy,” said Carbon.
Two fatal crises
The Argentinian pope, who suffers from a chronic pulmonary disease and was part of a lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli on February 14 after an aggravation of bronchitis.
Doctors first diagnosed an infection of the bacterial, viral and fungal respiratory tracts and shortly after, pneumonia in the two lungs. Blood tests have shown signs of anemia, low blood plates and the start of kidney failure, which all resolved later after two blood transfusions.
The most serious setbacks began on February 28, when Francis experienced an acute cough adjustment and inhaled vomit, requiring the use of a non -invasive mechanical ventilation mask to help him breathe. He underwent two additional respiratory crises a few days later, which forced doctors to manually suck up “copious” quantities of mucus of his lungs, how much he started sleeping with the ventilation mask at night to help his lungs clean the accumulation of liquids.
He has never been intubated and at no time has lost consciousness. The doctors said that he had always remained alert and cooperative, although they say that he probably lost a little weight given a natural loss of appetite.
“Unfortunately yes, there was a time when many said that he could not get there. And it was painful for us,” said Mario Balsamo, the owner of a cafe in front of Gemelli. “Instead, today with the discharge, we are very happy that he is not going and we hope he will soon recover and recover his strength.”
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, Gemelli’s medical and surgical leader who coordinated Francis’s medical team, stressed that all patients who develop such a serious case of double pneumonia survive, and even less are released from the hospital. He said that Francis’ life was in danger twice during the two acute respiratory crises, and that the Pope at the time naturally lost his common sense of humor.
“But one morning, we went to listen to his lungs and we asked him how he was going. When he replied:” I am still alive “, we knew that he was fine and had recovered his good humor,” he said.
Alfieri confirmed that Francis still had trouble speaking due to the damage to his lungs and the respiratory muscles. But he said that such problems were normal, especially in older patients, and predicted that his voice would ultimately return to normal.
No confirmed appointments for the moment
Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni refused to confirm any upcoming event, including an audience scheduled for April 8 with the participation of King Charles III or Francis in Easter services at the end of the month. But Carbon said he hoped that Francis could be good enough to get to Türkiye at the end of May to participate in an important ecumenical birthday.
Francis also returns to the Vatican in the throes of a holy year, the former celebration of the century of the century which should attract more than 30 million pilgrims in Rome this year. The Pope has already missed several audiences of the jubilee and will probably lack several others, but those responsible for the Vatican say that his absence did not have a significant impact on the number of expected pilgrims.
Only St. John Paul II recorded longer hospitalization in 1981, when he spent 55 days in Gemelli for minor surgery and treatment of an infection.
The writers of the Associated Press Giada Zampano in Rome and Colleen Barry in Soave, Italy, contributed to this report.