Pope Francis is in a hurry to leave Gemelli, where he has been hospitalized since Wednesday afternoon for “infectious bronchitis”. On Saturday he will return to Casa Santa Marta, his residence in the Vatican, where he does not even intend to undergo a few days of rest, having already been confirmed that on Sunday morning he will be in St. Peter’s Square for the Palm Mass, which opens the rites of Holy Week. “The medical team that is following His Holiness Pope Francis, after evaluating the results of the tests carried out today and the favorable clinical course, confirmed the Holy Father’s resignation from the A. Gemelli Polyclinic on Saturday”. This was communicated to journalists by the director of the Vatican press office, Matteo Bruni.
Rome, the Pope visits children in the pediatric oncology department of the Gemelli
The sudden acceleration of events is due, yes, to the positive course of the “respiratory infection” of viral origin that struck Bergoglio, to the fact that the tests at the University Hospital ruled out more serious problems of the heart or lungs, net and rapid improvement by virtue of “infusion-based antibiotic therapy”.
ANSA agency
“Definite improvement” by the pontiff. There will be a new official update in the late morning (ANSA)
But also to the Pope’s will not to miss his presence at the liturgies of the week leading up to Easter, the most solemn of the liturgical year celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ. “Yesterday went well, with a normal clinical course. In the evening Pope Francis had dinner, eating pizza, together with those who assist him in these days of hospitalization: doctors, nurses, the assistants and the personnel of the Gendarmerie”, he added, not without a note of ‘color’. After just over half an hour, a further announcement came from the spokesperson for the Holy See: “I can confirm that, as he is expected to leave the hospital tomorrow, Pope Francis is expected to be present in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for the Eucharistic celebration of Palm Sunday, Passion of the Lord”. And for those who still had some doubts about the performance of the liturgy, a separate clarification: “I clarify that if he is present, he presides”, said Bruni.
The trials and hardships of life – lived in faith – help purify the heart, make it more humble and therefore more willing to open itself to God. #Lent
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex_it) March 31, 2023
ANSA agency
He also gave a baptism and brought chocolate eggs (ANSA)
In any case, on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope who will preside over the mass will be joined by the cardinal vice dean Leonardo Sandri for the procession of the Palms and to officiate the rites at the altar in the churchyard. Other celebrating cardinals will assist the Pope in the subsequent Easter rites. But Francesco’s day at the Gemelli today held another surprise. In the afternoon, in fact, a smiling and relaxed Bergoglio, in a white cassock, went to visit the children hospitalized in the pediatric oncology department of the hospital, bringing them rosaries, chocolate eggs and copies of the book “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea”. During the visit, which lasted about half an hour, the Pope imparted the sacrament of baptism to a baby named Miguel Angel, a few weeks old. “He is already a Christian. Go to the parish and tell them that the Pope baptized him”: thus Francis addressed Miguel Angel’s mother. At the end he returned to the ward on the tenth floor. The next will therefore be the third and last night of this hospitalization of the Pontiff at the Gemelli, the second hospitalization after that of July 2021 for the colon operation.
“The trials and hardships of life, lived in faith, help purify the heart, make it more humble and therefore more willing to open up to God”, he wrote in a tweet today. “The Pope is in an excellent mood and is a person who knows how to face these physical problems with great serenity. He is a little used to it and it is very nice to see the reaction of the world with so many messages of closeness and so much prayer. The Pope faces it with great serenity these small problems that have passed very quickly”, said Father Antonio Spadaro, director of Civiltà Cattolica, in a video connection to Sky Tg24 Live In, underway from the Maschio Angioino in Naples. “His presence will be important – he added – in such a central moment, sacred for believers, but his presence and his ‘Urbi et Orbi’ message, which will be there at Easter, will be a message addressed to the whole world. From that loggia of blessings in St. Peter’s Square, the figure of the Pope who launches a message of hope to the world will be and is important”.