Pope Francis will make his first public appearance in more than five weeks on Sunday, March 23, from the window of his hospital room at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. The 88-year-old pope has been fighting double pneumonia and was admitted on February 14 with a severe respiratory infection that needed continued treatment.
While in residence, the pope has appeared publicly only once, in a photo made public by the Vatican, in which he was praying in a hospital chapel. On Sunday, though, he will make a short appearance around noon to provide a greeting and blessing to the public. The Vatican explained that he will not give his traditional weekly prayer from St. Peter’s Square, indicating that he is still recovering from pneumonia.
Pope Francis is especially susceptible to lung infection because of a history of pleurisy and partial removal of one of his lungs at a young age. His hospitalization is the gravest health crisis he has encountered in his 12-year papacy and longest time he has been out of sight since his election as pope in 2013. Though the Vatican issued cautiously hopeful bulletins about his health, it reported that Francis had been scaling back on using high-flow oxygen to assist with breathing.
Cardinal Victor Fernandez, the Vatican’s doctrine chief, described the pope as ‘doing very well’ but requiring time to ‘relearn how to speak’ after long use of oxygen, which has parched his throat. Even though the Vatican has not announced an official release date, preparations for a reception with Britain’s King Charles on April 8 indicate that Francis could return to the Vatican by then.
