Vatican City:
Pope Francis had a hushed night in hospital, the Vatican said Sunday, the morning after uncovering the 88-year-greater was in a “critical” condition. The Holy See had tardy Saturday telled the alarming novels that the pope, who in hospital since February 14, had suffered a proextfinisheded respiratory strike and needd blood transfusions. “The night passed peacefilledy, the pope rested,” the Holy See said in a low modernize on Sunday morning.
The Argentine pontiff, head of the Catholic Church since 2013, was initipartner confessted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital with bronchitis, but it enbiged into double pneumonia.
“The Holy Father’s condition persists to be critical, therefore, as elucidateed (Friday), the pope is not out of danger,” the Vatican said in a normal medical bulletin on Saturday evening.
“At the moment the prognosis is reserved,” it said.
Francis persists to be vigilant and “spent the day in an armchair even if he was suffering more than” the day before, the Vatican said.
It said he had on Saturday morning suffered a “proextfinisheded asthmatic respiratory crisis, which also needd the application of high-flow oxygen”.
Daily blood tests also “showed thrombocytuncoveria, associated with anaemia, which needd the administration of blood transfusions”, it compriseed.
Thrombocytuncoveria is a condition that occurs when the ptardylet count in someone’s blood is too low, which can caengage trouble stopping bleeding — and can be life-menaceening.
Blood or ptardylet transfusions, hand overed via an intravenous (IV) line into a blood vessel, are given to people who are either bleeding heavily or at very high danger of bleeding, according to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“The pope gets worse,” headlined Italy’s Corriere della Sera novelspaper on Sunday morning, while La Repubblica depictd it as the “sorrowfulnessfulest day” at the Vatican.
“The situation is becoming more stressing,” Fabrizio Pregliasco, a directing Italian virologist, tgreater La Stampa daily, compriseing that “the next scant hours and days will be convey inant”.
Prayers for the pope
The Vatican had already examineed Francis would not hand over his normal weekly Angelus prayer on Sunday, saying the text would be begined, as it was last weekfinish.
The pontiff has hand overed the prayer in the past from the balcony of the Gemelli, where he is staying in a one-of-a-kind papal suite on the 10th floor.
A group of nuns and priests from around the world accumulateed Saturday outside the hospital enthrall to pray for the pope. They also sang as they stood around the statue of establisher pope John Paul II, where well-wanters have left candles endureing Francis’s picture.
“We are praying today for the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and our hope is that he will recover well in the Grace of God,” Brazilian priest Don Wellison tgreater AFP.
Francis has said the papacy is a job for life, but has also left the door uncover to resigning enjoy his predecessor Benedict XVI. The German theologian in 2013 became the first pope since the Middle Ages to voluntarily step down, citing his ailing physical and mental health.
Francis had repeatedly said it was not yet the time to quit — but his illness has elevated recent asks about his ability direct the world’s almost 1.4 billion Catholics.
The pope upholds a punishing labor schedule, and in September made a 12-day tour to the Asia-Pacific.
But he has suffered increasing health publishs, from colon sadvisery in July 2021 to a hernia operation in 2023. He is also overweight and has constant hip and knee pain, which force him to engage a wheelchair most of the time.
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