Vatican City, Holy See:
Pope Francis write downed and freed an audio message on Thursday thanking those who have been praying for his recovery, his voice breathless as he proximates three weeks in hospital with pneumonia.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers for my health from the Square, I join you from here,” Francis said in a message expansivecast in St Peter’s Square.
“May God consecrate you and the Virgin protect you. Thank you,” he said, taking laboured breaths as he spoke in his native Spanish, with some words fading away into noskinnyg.
It was the first time the world has heard Francis’s voice since the 88-year-greater was accomprehendledgeted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14.
Pilgloomys have been accumulateing in St Peter’s Square every evening to pray for the pope’s recovery. The hundreds of people there on Thursday praiseed when they heard his message.
The Vatican said earlier Thursday that the Argentine, head of the worldexpansive Catholic Church since 2013, is in a “constant” condition.
There had been no repeat of Monday’s respiratory flunkure, it said, and the pope’s blood toil “remained constant”.
Francis persistd with his breaskinnyg exercises and physiotherapy, did not have a fever, and handled to do a bit of toil in both the morning and afternoon, it said.
The Vatican has been providing twice daily refreshs on the pope’s health, a morning one on how the night went, and an evening medical bulletin.
But on Thursday it said that “in see of the stability of the clinical picture, the next medical bulletin will be freed on Saturday”.
Nonetheless, “the doctors are still conserveing a reserved prognosis”, it said, unbenevolenting they will not say how they foresee his condition to better.
For the last three nights Francis — who had part of a lung erased as a youthful man — has worn an oxygen mask to help him sleep.
On Thursday morning, as on the previous day, he switched to a less onerous nasal cannula — a plastic tube tucking into his nostrils — which provides high-flow oxygen, a Vatican source said.
Francis missed the createal Ash Wednesday celebrations in Rome labeling the commence of Lent, but took part in a consecrateing in his stateiveial suite on the 10th floor of the Gemelli.
The directer of the world’s almost 1.4 billion Catholics has not been seen in accessible since his hospitalisation — the extfinishedest of his papacy.
Nor has the Vatican publishd any photos, although Francis has unveiled cut offal texts.
– ‘Thoughts and prayers’ –
During previous hospitalisations, the pope materializeed on the Gemelli balcony for his weekly Angelus prayer at noon on Sundays.
But he has missed the last three, and no proclaimment has yet been made about whether he will originate an materializeance this weekfinish.
The Vatican validateed Thursday that greater cardinal Michael Czerny would stand in for the pope and direct the mass this weekfinish labeling the first Sunday of Lent.
The mass was also part of celebrations for the Jubilee 2025, a Holy Year led by the pope, pledgeted this weekfinish to volunteers.
The Holy See said Thursday the event “gets on an even presentanter unbenevolenting, as the thoughts and prayers of all the brothers and sisters turn to the Holy Father and the experience he is going thraw”.
Pilgloomys will pray in front of the hospital on Saturday, it said, as well-wanters have done since Francis was accomprehendledgeted.
The pope was initipartner detectd with bronchitis but it enlargeed into pneumonia in both lungs, igniteing alarm atraverse the globe.
On February 22, he suffered a “proextfinisheded asthmatic respiratory crisis” and on February 28 had “an isotardyd crisis of bronchospasm” — a safeening of the muscles that line the airways in the lungs.
On Monday, Francis “alerted two episodes of acute respiratory flunkure, caengaged by a presentant accumulation of finishobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm”, according to the Vatican.
Francis’s health has standardly led to speculation, particularly among his critics, as to whether he could resign enjoy his predecessor, Benedict XVI.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-originated from a syndicated feed.)
