VATICAN CITY – Waking up at dawn, a light breakfast, reading a few newspapers with the images of his suffering face during the general audience of Wednesday that preceded hospitalizationand then a glance at daily practices: just yesterday the Holy See published the solemn “repudiation” of the so-called “doctrine of discovery”, used since the end of the fifteenth century to expropriate the lands of the Americas from the indigenous peoples and which “is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church», and Francis wanted it to be clear since last year he went among the natives in Canada. Behold: the Pope “has resumed work”. More than the not irrelevant detail of the prayer and the Eucharist in the chapel of the papal apartment on the tenth floor of the Gemelli – which means at least that he got out of bed – it is the «progressive» and «significant improvement» , with relative return to workthe essential message that Francis wanted to convey beyond the curtain of almost absolute confidentiality that the Pope himself has ordered, as in 2021, around his hospitalization.
Of course, it is said, Francis wants to return to the Vatican and show himself to the faithful as soon as possible. A long corridor controlled by police officers and Vatican gendarmes and, in the back, the whitewashed rooms of the pontifical apartment closed to the outside world, except for the staff of the Polyclinic and a few of the staff, the nurse and personal “health assistant” Massimiliano Strapppettithe director of Health and Hygiene of the State Andrea Arcangeli, head of the Health and Hygiene Directorate of the Vatican State, the personal secretary Gonzalo Aemilius. The stable order is to transmit the signal that the Pope is working and calling, even if Wednesday’s cardiorespiratory illness was not a light thing, like reading antibiotic therapies are not. So much of the afternoon was dedicated to prayer and rest. But it’s not just Francis’ known reluctance to talk about his health. It was John Paul II who revolutionized communication, to the point of showing the suffering body, determined to stay until the end because “one does not come down from the cross”. Before him, ironically, it was said in the Vatican that “the Pope is fine until he is dead”.
Cardinal Ratzinger had lived Wojtyla’s last months with anguish, with the relative danger that others would decide for the Pope, and as pontiff he stepped aside when he felt his strength fail. Francesco is different from both.
He doesn’t like to show suffering and, they guarantee Oltretevere, now he doesn’t have the slightest intention to step aside. It intends to supervise the Synod that it wanted to convene between October of this year and 2024, warning the opposing factions: «Traditionnalism and progressivism are acts of infidelity. When he spoke to the Jesuits about the Petrine ministry «ad vitam», he quoted the Bible: «The ministry of the great patriarchs is always for life. There may be exceptions, but the rule remains the same. And the historical tradition is important».