A week of one of the most tortuous episodes that Pope Francis has suffered during his long convalescence at the Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital is celebrated. We do not know how much the prolonged respiratory crisis that suffered on Saturday morning lasted, but the Vatican included the adjective “painful” in the medical bulletin.
A very delicate moment, with a deep sensation of drowning, which, in addition to alarming doctors who had to connect it to an oxygen bottle, infected the world of anguish.
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Ana Jiménez is one of the Spanish pilgrims who had to meet with the pontiff in one of the audiences planned for this week as part of the Jubileo de la Esperanza and that have had to be canceled.
“We continue all the news about his health; There are days that are better and others a little worse. There is a lot of uncertainty and we are living these moments a bit as if we were in a roller coaster, ”he says.
She has traveled with her husband and ten -year -old daughter, Maria, who, with her self -confidence, has filled the trip with joy.
“We want to see the news, but in Italian we don’t understand anything,” he says with the children’s own authenticity.
Es la primera vez que la pequeña sale de España y está entusiasmada con la peregrinación. “He is loveing everything, but to be able to come I have had to work much earlier so as not to lose lessons,” says María, who wants to be a pianist.
His father, Alfredo Chipriana, enlightens his face to see that she is a very applied girl. He is also worried about the health of the Holy Father, which today celebrates 15 days hospitalized.
“It has been a shame not to see it. But, above all, we have had a bad time for him, because we know that he has suffered pain and that it has had a very bad time, ”he says.
In any case, he is hopeful with the latest updates of the Vatican, who have confirmed that the Pontiff has already left the critical situation, despite the fact that doctors maintain, for the moment, the reserved prognosis.
“We have prayed for him every day, a lot, and I think he has served him a little because he is now better,” he adds.
Indeed, there are few who in Rome are convinced that the power of prayer is taking effect.
Every night, despite the humidity and cold of the winter of Rome, hundreds of people meet in the Plaza de San Pedro to pray the Rosary for the health of the Holy Father. It is an initiative promoted by the cardinals residing in Rome and their collaborators of the Roman curia, who help him in the practical government of the Universal Church.
The first was the Secretary of State of the Vatican, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, this Monday, coinciding with the first medical part that, after days of difficulties due to bilateral pneumonia, reported a “slight improvement” in the conditions of Pope Francis. Today touches the prefect of the Dicastery for the doctrine of faith, Víctor Manuel Fernández.
Mónica is another of the Spanish pilgrims of the group of 120 people who traveled from Madrid in two buses and two vans, along with the bishop of the Diocese of Alcalá de Henares, Mons. Antonio Prieto Lucena.
“Every day we have had a while to ask the Lord to recover soon,” he says.
The Vicar General of the Diocese, Fr. Alberto Raposo: “We pray for him with great enthusiasm, especially when he heard the latest news that they say he is recovering.”
On February 21, the two doctors who run the medical team that attends the Pontiff in the Gemelli, Sergio Alfieri – who operated on the abdomen in 2023 – and Luigi Carbone, a medical deputy director of the Vatican, made clear what is the worst scenario in their clinical picture.
“If, unfortunately, despite all the pharmacological treatment he is receiving and the dosing of cortisone with very low levels to prevent diabetes, one of the germs would pass to the blood, to any patient would give septicemia. And septicemia, at the age of the Pope (88 years), would be difficult to treat, ”they said.
However, for now the evolution of the disease seems to have overcome that danger.
While the world prays for its recovery, Pope Francis lives with serenity these moments of difficulty. In addition, it is moved by the hundreds of messages that have arrived in the last days to the hospital, many of them of children and sick.
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all the news of the Vatican for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa and Omega.