We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
LAST UPDATE | 18 Feb
POPE FRANCIS, WHO was admitted to hospital last week, has developed pneumonia in both of his lungs, the Vatican has confirmed.
“The laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father’s clinical condition continue to present a complex picture”, the Vatican said in a statement.
Francis (88) was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital last Friday for bronchitis, but the Vatican on Monday said it was changing his treatment following tests.
It said today that a “polymicrobial infection” which has come on top of “bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis, and which required the use of cortisone antibiotic therapy, makes therapeutic treatment more complex”.
“The follow-up chest CT scan which the Holy Father underwent this afternoon… demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia, which required additional drug therapy,” it said.
In his recently released autobiography, Hope, Francis revealed that he felt it was “embarrassing at first to have to use a wheelchair”.
“But old age never arrives by itself, and it must be accepted for what it is,” added Francis.
The pontiff had part of his right lung cut away when he was 21, after developing pleurisy that almost killed him.
The Vatican had already cancelled a papal audience on Saturday and said he would not attend a mass on Sunday, although it has yet to announce plans for his weekly Angelus prayer, held on Sunday.
“Nevertheless, Pope Francis is in good spirits,” it added.
The pope spent his fifth day in hospital alternating rest with prayer and reading texts, the Vatican said.
Francis, the head of the Catholic Church since 2013, was admitted to hospital after struggling for several days to read his texts in public.
It is the latest of a series of health issues for the Jesuit, who has undergone hernia and colon surgery since 2021 and uses a wheelchair due to pain in his knee.
Among the pilgrims and tourists gathered in Saint Peter’s Square on Tuesday, many said they were praying for the pope’s recovery.
“I hope that he’s getting better soon,” Birgit Jungreuthmayer, a 48-year-old Austrian tourist, told AFP.
Others gathered outside the Gemelli hospital, holding candles or saying prayers.
“I came to say a prayer for the pope so that he may recover soon. I send him my best wishes”, said Jacqueline Troncoso, a Bolivian resident in Rome.
The Vatican published drawings done by children in the hospital for Francis, as well as letters from parents asking him to pray for their sick offspring.
Francis “gives thanks for the closeness he feels at this time and asks, with a grateful heart, that we continue to pray for him”, it said.
Update from the Holy See Press Office. pic.twitter.com/0flY1suEMs
— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) February 18, 2025
Despite his health troubles, Francis remains a very active pontiff, with a busy weekly schedule and regular overseas trips.
In September 2024, he completed a four-nation Asia-Pacific tour, the longest of his papacy by duration and distance.
A source within the pope’s entourage had told AFP Monday that Francis was admitted after a “very busy” two weeks, during which “he was weakened” — but insisted there was no alarm.
Francis followed last Sunday’s mass on television from hospital and sent a written address for the Angelus.
“I would have liked to be among you but, as you know, I am here at the Gemelli hospital because I still need some treatment for my bronchitis,” Francis wrote.
The Jesuit has left open the option of resigning if he became unable to carry out his duties.
His predecessor, Benedict XVI, stunned the world in 2013 by becoming the first pope since the Middle Ages to step down, citing his ailing health.
But in a memoir published last year, Francis wrote that he did “not have any cause serious enough to make me think of resigning”.
Stepping down is a “distant possibility” that would be justified only in the event of “a serious physical impediment”, he wrote.
In an autobiography published last month, he said that despite his ailments, “I carry on”.
“The reality is, quite simply, that I am old,” he said.
-© AFP 2025 and with additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
God bless Pope Francis. He may not be able to continue much longer as pope. The Journal opens up the comments section once again to allow attacks on the Catholic church in particular and Christianity in general.
@Electro Box: You’d think with all this diversity,equity and inclusion that they keep on about, that they’d give Islam a lash now and then, but no, Christianity is a soft target, Islam….too dangerous!
@Brian Hunt: thoughts and prayers with all the lads pretending to be devout Catholics so they can claim another crumb of imaginary oppression.
@Brian Hunt: Our brave media already in Stockholm Syndrome fear.
@thomas molloy: half the country has Stockholm Syndrome, it’s the only possible explanation for people believing a biscuit turns into the body of a man who died 2000 years ago. Not to mention the systemic crimes against children, committed with impunity. If a new cult came in and did that it would be banned, Stockholm syndrome is the only explanation.
@An Other: the catholic church should be attacked at all times. If it was a sports club you’d not let your kids near the place. And that’s just the child abuse. The church has been mired in corruption, murder, genocide, purges, misogyny for millenia. Only the uninformed, the elderly and the gullible believe their nonsense these days
Double pneumonia, not good, but I wish him a speedy recovery!
Wish him all the best, as you should with any human being who takes ill, but a Trojan horse if there ever was one.
@Louis Jacob: What’s being smuggled in the horse?
@Louis Jacob: The catholic church has been compromised for many centuries now. With ungodly wretches. Martin Luther was correct about a lot of things.
@Joe Willis: lots of problems in luthers church …….read the news.
@Joe Willis: The various new churches and religious cults teach, predict and wish for the disappearance of the Catholic Church but are bitter with disappointment when that does not happen. It’s the root unspoken of energy of anti Catholicism.
If the Catholic Church want to encourage young people to attend the church, they’re should be a way younger pope. Instead of giving it to old elderly men who are at retirement age.
Speedy Recovery to Pope Francis
A younger person, needs to take on this role.
I think it’s time for him to step down. Pope Francis has been sick for the past two months. He suffered a bad fall in January and it seems to have just knocked the life out of him. The Bronchitis is also hitting the Pope hard. Considering he nearly died when he was younger after a bad bout of Pneumonia while he was working as a bouncer and had to have part of one of his lungs removed, any sort of lung illnesses are going to be much more tricky for him to get better from.
Will be waiting to see the smoke within a month
have your say