News is breaking Saturday afternoon that Pope Francis, who has been in the hospital for over a week with an acute respiratory illness, has had a significant health setback and is now in critical condition. This situation is so serious that some are speculating the pontiff may now take the exceedingly rare option of resigning his role as head of the Catholic Church to make way for someone younger and healthier to assume the papacy.
BREAKING đź”´
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Vatican: The Pope is in critical condition. pic.twitter.com/o6pCP1JMyV
The 88-year-old pope first entered Gemelli Hospital on February 14 with a "complex viral, bacterial, and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia," which poses a serious threat to his health since he only has one fully functional lung. Concern began to grow when the Vatican started canceling the pope's appearances for the following week, including the general audience he holds every Wednesday. He is often seen at this weekly event in a wheelchair and rarely misses it.
Over the course of the past week, the Vatican has been giving daily updates on Pope Francis's health and revealed that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited him in the hospital before making her way to the United States to speak to the audience at CPAC.
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The Friday update was fairly positive, with doctors reporting that the pope was having trouble breathing but was not on a ventilator and was not allowed to move around too much.
Nevertheless, the physician said, the Pope is sitting upright in a chair, working, and joking as usual. Alfieri said that when one of the doctors greeted the Pope by saying “Hello, Holy Father”, he replied with “Hello, Holy Son”.
The bottom line just yesterday was that Pope Francis was not "in danger of death," but also he was not "out of danger," according to his personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone. “So like all fragile patients, I say they are always on the golden scale: In other words, it takes very little to become unbalanced.”
Things deteriorated Saturday morning after Francis experienced a prolonged "asthma-like respiratory crisis," which his status into critical condition. Per the Vatican:
The condition of the Holy Father continues to be critical. Therefore, as explained yesterday, the Pope is not out of danger. This morning, Pope Francis experienced an asthma-like respiratory crisis of prolonged intensity, which required the administration of high-flow oxygen.
Today's blood tests also revealed thrombocytopenia, associated with anemia, which required the administration of blood transfusions.
The Holy Father remains alert and spent the day in an armchair, although he is more uncomfortable than yesterday. At the moment, the prognosis remains guarded.
Even before his more recent hospitalization, the pope was reportedly gaming out ways to preserve his legacy upon his passing. On February 6, Pope Francis extended Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re's term as dean of the College of Cardinals, which will oversee the preparations for the conclave of Cardinals that will choose the next pope.
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Most recently, the pontiff made headlines for trying to snap back at Vice President JD Vance—who is a Catholic convert and dared to voice support for the repatriation efforts of the Trump administration—by sending a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops calling on them to not "cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters."
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