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Pope Francis made his first public appearance on Sunday after spending more than five weeks at the hospital, where he survived a serious pneumonia case that doctors said he twice threatened the life of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
The 88 -year -old pontiff offered a Sunday blessing from the Gemelli Hospital in Rome. The Vatican station also read in English a statement of the Pontiff issued by the Santa Press Office according to.
In him, Pope Francis said he was “saddened by the resumption of the heavy Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip, causing many deaths and injuries.”
“I ask for an immediate stop the weapons and the courage to resume the dialogue so that all the hostages can be launched and the final fire can reach a high,” the Pontiff wrote. “In the Gaza Strip, the humanitarian situation is again very serious and requires an urgent commitment of the conflicting parties and the international community.”
The Pope said he is happy that Armenia and Azerbaiyan agree on the final text of the peace agreement, “and I hope it is signed as soon as possible and, therefore, can contribute to establishing lasting peace in the South Caucus.”
“You continue to pray for me with great patience and perseverance. Thank you very much. I also pray for you. And together we pray for the end of wars and for peace, especially in tormented, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Francis wrote. “May the Virgin Mary maintain it and continue to accompany us on our trip to Easter.”
A large crowd met at the main entrance piazza of the Gemelli Hospital, including patients who were outside to see it in person. The Pope left the balcony and smiled, briefly speaking through a microphone, although doctors have said that his voice has weakened for his illness. The Holy Father made the sign from the cross to the crowd. Subsequently, Francis was discharged from the hospital and will return to the Vatican to begin at least two months of rest, rehabilitation and convalescence.
Pope Francis was discharged from the hospital on Sunday: doctors
Pope Francis makes a gesture during his first public appearance in five weeks, the day he will be discharged from the Gemelli Hospital, in Rome, Italy, on March 23, 2025. (Reuters/Yara Nardi)
Its high occurs after 38 days of medical ups and downs that raised the possibility of papal or funeral resignation.
The doctors, who announced their launch planned at a press conference on Saturday night, have said that the Holy Father should refrain from meeting with large groups of people or exercise themselves, but that it should eventually be able to resume all their normal activities. It was Francis’s longest hospitalization of his 12 -year -old papacy and the second longest in recent papal history.
In the Vatican, on the third Sunday of the Lent season waiting for Easter, the pilgrims went into mass as they have done all year to the Basilica of San Pedro to participate in the Holy Year 2025. They swarmed the Plaza de San Pedro and progressed through the holy door in groups, while the large television screens in the square were lit to broadcast the greeting of the Francisco Live Hospital, according to Associated Press.
No special arrangements have been made at the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican Hotel next to the Basilica, where Francis lives in a two -room suite on the second floor, according to the AP. Francis will have access to supplementary oxygen and 24 -hour medical care as necessary, although his personal doctor, Dr. Luigi Carbone, said he expected Francis to need less and less assistance breathing as his lungs recover.
While pneumonia infection has been treated successfully, Francis will continue to take oral medications for a long time to treat fungal infection in his lungs and continue his respiratory and physical physiotherapy.
“For three or four days he has been asking when he can go home, so he is very happy,” Carbone said.
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the Medical and Surgical Chief of Gemelli who coordinated Francis’s medical team, emphasized that not all patients who develop such a serious case of double pneumonia survive, much less are released from the hospital. He said that Francis’s life was at risk twice, during the two acute respiratory crises, and that the Pope at that time understood his typical sense of humor.
King Carlos III to meet Pope Francis during the visit to the Vatican next month
“But one morning we listened to his lungs and we asked him how he was. When he replied: ‘I’m still alive,’ we knew he was fine and that he had recovered his good humor,” he said.
The Holy Father was never intubated and never lost consciousness, said Alfieri.
Alfieri confirmed that Francis was still having trouble speaking due to damage to his lungs and respiratory muscles. But he said that such problems were normal, especially in older patients, and predicted that his voice would eventually return to normal.
The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, refused to confirm the next events, including an audience scheduled on April 8 with the participation of King Carlos III or Francis in Easter services at the end of the month. But Carbone said he expected Francis to be well enough to travel to Türkiye at the end of May to participate in an important ecumenical anniversary.
Francis is also returning to the Vatican in the middle of a holy year, the celebration of a century of each that has more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome this year. The Pope has already lost several jubilee audiences and presumably will lose several more, but Vatican officials say that his absence has not significantly affected the number of expected pilgrims that come.
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Only San Juan Pablo II registered a longer hospitalization in 1981, when he spent 55 days in Gemelli for minor surgery and the treatment of an infection.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
