Pope Francis’ condition is not life-threatening, but he is not out of danger, his medical team said, as the 88-year-old pontiff marked his first week in a hospital with pneumonia on top of chronic bronchitis.
Francis’ doctors delivered their first in-person update on the pope’s condition on Friday, saying that he will remain hospitalised at least all of next week.
The pope is receiving occasional supplements of oxygen and is responding to strengthened drug therapy for pneumonia, doctors said.
Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14 after a case of bronchitis worsened.
Doctors later diagnosed a complex respiratory infection, involving bacteria, virus and other organisms and the onset of pneumonia in both lungs on top of asthmatic bronchitis.
They prescribed “absolute rest”.
As his hospital stay drags on, some of Francis’ cardinals have begun responding to the obvious question that is circulating: whether Francis might resign if he becomes irreversibly sick and unable to carry on.
Francis has said he would consider it, after Pope Benedict XVI “opened the door” to popes retiring, but has shown no signs of stepping down and in fact has asserted recently that the role of pope is for life.
