Pope Francis has promoted a Vatican nurse he credited with saving his life to be his “personal health care assistant”.
The Vatican announced the appointment of Massimiliano Strappetti in a one-line statement on Thursday.
Mr Strappetti, the nursing co-ordinator of the Vatican’s health department, accompanied Pope Francis on a difficult trip to Canada last month.
The Pope (85) last year credited him with having accurately ascertained an intestinal problem which led to the his 10-day hospital stay in July 2021 to remove 13 inches of his colon that had narrowed.
“A nurse, a man with a lot of experience, saved my life,” Pope Francis told the Spanish bishops’ conference in the months after his surgery.
The Pope noted that Mr Strappetti’s intervention was the second time a nurse had saved his life. A nurse in his native Argentina decided in 1957 to double the amount of drugs the future pope, then known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was prescribed after part of his lung was removed due to a respiratory infection, he recalled.
Pope Francis has a personal physician, Dr Roberto Bernabei, who was appointed last year. Dr Bernabei is an internist and geriatric specialist at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome.
The pontiff has had a series of health problems in the past year, most significantly strained ligaments in his right knee that sharply reduced his mobility.
After months of magnetic and laser treatments, he can walk short distances with a cane or walker, though he also uses a wheelchair.
Mr Strappetti was on hand to help with the wheelchair during Pope Francis’s general audience on Wednesday. He co-ordinates the nurses of the Vatican’s small health care system, which provides basic care for Vatican employees and their families.
His appointment was announced days after he and a doctor accompanied the Pope on his week-long “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada to atone for the Catholic Church’s role in the country’s residential schools for Indigenous children.
Pope Francis always travels with a doctor and nurse who are on call in case he has health problems, and Mr Strappetti was on hand when he issued his main apology and received a feathered headdress from Indigenous leaders.
On the flight home from the trip, the Pope said he would have to slow down his travels and maybe resign one day.
“This trip was a bit of a test. It’s true you can’t do trips in this state, maybe we have to change a bit the style, reduce, pay the debts of the trips that I still have to do and reorganise,” he said.
He added that “the door is open” to also resign if he cannot carry on.
