Pope Francis to spend ‘few days’ in hospital due to respiratory infection

HEALTH CONDITIONS

The leader of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics suffers from diverticulitis, a condition that can infect or inflame the colon, and was operated on at the Gemelli hospital in 2021 to remove part of his colon.

He said in January that the condition had returned and that it was causing him to put on weight, but that he was not overly concerned. He did not elaborate.

Francis told Reuters in an interview last year that he preferred not to have surgery on his troublesome knee because he did not want a repeat of long-term negative side effects from anaesthesia that he suffered after the 2021 operation.

Last July, returning from a trip to Canada, Francis acknowledged that his advancing age and his difficulty walking might have ushered in a new, slower phase of his papacy.

But since then he has visited Kazakhstan and Bahrain and made a trip last month to Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

He has also committed to visiting Hungary in late April, Portugal in August and the French city of Marseille in September. He has said, if it can be arranged, he would want to then fly from Marseille to Mongolia.

After praising his late predecessor Benedict XVI’s historic decision to resign on health grounds in 2013, Francis has indicated he would follow the example only if he were gravely incapacitated.

Asked by Italian Swiss television RSI in an interview broadcast on Mar 12 what condition would lead him to quit, he said: “A tiredness that doesn’t let you see things clearly. A lack of clarity, of knowing how to evaluate situations.”