Pope Francis blood tests show 'slight improvement', says Vatican

LAST UPDATE | 19 Feb

THE VATICAN HAS said that Pope Francis has “stable” conditions, with his blood tests showing a “slight improvement”.

“The clinical conditions of the Holy Father are stable. The blood tests, evaluated by the medical staff, show a slight improvement, particularly in inflammatory indices,” the Vatican said in a statement.

The 88-year-old pontiff spent his sixth day in Rome’s Gemelli hospital.

This morning, the Vatican said Pope Francis was breathing on his own despite his pneumonia.

Francis was admitted to hospital with bronchitis last week after suffering breathing difficulties, but the Holy See revealed yesterday that he had developed pneumonia in both of his lungs. 

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she found Pope Francis to be “alert and responsive” during a visit to see the pontiff in hospital today.

“I was very happy to find him alert and responsive. We joked as always. He hasn’t lost his proverbial sense of humour,” she said in a statement.

The pneumonia is the latest of a series of health issues for the Jesuit, who has undergone hernia and colon surgery since 2021 and uses a wheelchair due to pain in his knee.

“The pope spent a peaceful night, woke up and had breakfast,” the Vatican said this morning after Francis’s fifth night at the Gemelli hospital, which has a suite reserved especially for popes.

“The pope is breathing on his own. His heart is holding up very well,” a source in the Vatican said.

Pope Francis during weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on 12 Feb., 2025 Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Francis has been speaking to friends by telephone, has been out of bed and sitting in a chair, and working on and off, the source said.

He has also been keeping in touch with the Church of the Holy Family, the only Catholic church in Gaza, while in hospital.

Yesterday, the Vatican had reported that Francis was in “good spirits”.

But in an evening medical bulletin, it warned that “the laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father’s clinical condition continue to present a complex picture”.

A “polymicrobial infection” which has come on top of “bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis, and which required the use of cortisone antibiotic therapy, makes therapeutic treatment more complex”, the Vatican said.

“The follow-up chest CT scan which the Holy Father underwent this afternoon… demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia, which required additional drug therapy,” it added.

Bronchiectasis is when the bronchi, or air passages, thicken due to infection or another condition.

The pontiff had part of his right lung cut away when he was 21, after developing pleurisy that almost killed him.

The Vatican has cancelled a papal audience on Saturday and said the pope would not attend a mass on Sunday, although it has yet to announce plans for his weekly Angelus prayer, which is held on Sunday at midday.

‘Delicate situation’

Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, called on all parishes in the Italian capital to pray for the recovery of the pope, who has been busy with a packed calendar of events due to a special Catholic year called a “Jubilee”.

Candles, some with pictures of the pope on them, have been set at the bottom of a statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital, where pilgrims have been coming to pray.

Statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

“I hope he recovers as soon as possible because this is the Jubilee year and he has so much to do for young people, for everyone, it’s very sad,” said Annamaria Santoro, an Italian woman whose son was in the same hospital.

The Vatican published drawings made by children in the hospital for Francis, as well as letters from parents asking him to pray for their sick offspring.

Francis, the head of the Catholic Church since 2013, was admitted to hospital after struggling for several days to read his texts in public.

Jesuit theologian Antonio Spadaro, who is close to Francis, told Italy’s Corriere della Sera daily the pope could be in hospital for two to three weeks.

“It is clear that the situation is delicate, but I have not perceived any form of alarmism,” he said.

The pope “has an extraordinary vital energy. He is not a person who lets himself go, he is not a resigned man. And that is a very positive element, we have seen that in the past”, he said.

In his newly published memoir, Hope, Francis remarked that “each time a pope takes ill, the winds of a conclave always feel as if they are blowing”.

While Francis said the “reality is that even during the days of surgery I never thought of resigning”, he acknowledged that resigning is “always a possibility” and that should he resign, he would “remain in Rome, as emeritus bishop”.

He further writes in his memoir that while he is “well” now, “the reality is, quite simply, that I am old”.

Francis added that he “had the feeling” that his papacy would be “brief, no more than three or four years”.

“I never imagined that I would have made all those journeys to more than sixty countries,” he wrote.

He also reveals that he will not be buried in St Peter’s Basilica, writing: “The Vatican is the home of my last service, not my eternal home.”

He also described the funeral service planned for him as “excessive” and has “arranged with the master of ceremonies to lighten it”.

-With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper