After a quiet evening, Pope Francis was “resting” Thursday, according to the Vatican, as the 88-year-old approaches three weeks in the hospital due to pneumonia.
Since February 14, the Argentine pope, who has led the global Catholic Church since 2013, has been at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.
The Vatican reported late on Wednesday that Francis had spent the day in an armchair and that his respiratory failure from Monday had not returned.
However, it also stated that “the prognosis remains reserved due to the complexity of the clinical picture,” which means that medical professionals would not discuss how they anticipate his condition developing.
In a customarily succinct statement, the Holy See said Thursday morning that “the night passed peacefully” and that the pope was sleeping.
Francis, who had a portion of his lung removed when he was a young man, has been sleeping with an oxygen mask on for the past three nights.
According to a Vatican source, he switched to a less cumbersome nasal cannula—a plastic tube that fits into his nostrils and delivers high-flow oxygen—on Thursday morning, much like the day before.
Francis participated in a blessing in his private suite on the tenth floor of the Gemelli, but he was not present during the official Ash Wednesday rituals in Rome that marked the beginning of Lent.
The pope’s health has been updated twice a day by the Vatican.However, since his hospitalization—the longest of his papacy—the leader of the almost 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide has not been seen in public.Francis has published a number of writings, but the Vatican has not released any images.
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