‘Still alive, you know,’ Pope jokes as he departs hospital

Vatican says the pontiff will be present for Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square.

The Pope leaves Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Saturday. Picture: AFP

Pope Francis left a Rome hospital on Saturday morning after a three-night stay during which doctors treated him for bronchitis.

The Pope, 86, looked tired but in good spirits when he emerged from his car outside the hospital to greet press and wellwishers.

“Still alive, you know,” he said with a smile when asked how he felt. Then he quoted with laughter an unnamed acquaintance who had once told him after an illness: “I saw death coming and it’s ugly.”

The Pope was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Wednesday after several days of breathing difficulty. He was treated intravenously with antibiotics.

On Friday evening the Vatican said that, based on a round of unspecified tests and the “favourable clinical development” of his case, the Pope could leave the hospital the next day.

The Vatican said the Pope would be present at Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, the start of Holy Week, which culminates in Easter Sunday.

However, according to the program for the ceremony, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri will actually celebrate Palm Sunday Mass from the altar.

The Pope, who has been using a wheelchair and sometimes a cane since last May because of a knee ailment, similarly presided at mass without celebrating from the altar in St Peter’s Basilica last Christmas Eve.

Last week’s hospital visit renewed concerns about the health of Pope Francis, who was hospitalised for 10 days in July 2021 for diverticulitis when he had part of his colon removed. He told an interviewer in January that the condition had returned.

The Vatican characteristically revealed little medical detail about the Pope’s hospital stay last week but communicated vig-nettes showing that the illness had not inhibited his gregarious personality.

On Thursday evening he ate pizza with his medical and security teams. On Friday afternoon the Pope visited the hospital’s paediatric cancer and neurosurgery wards, bringing the young patients rosaries, chocolate Easter eggs and copies of a book about the birth of Jesus. While in the neurosurgery ward, he baptised a newborn named Miguel Angel.

Pope Francis has often said that he would resign if he became unable to fulfil his duties, and praised his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI for doing so in 2013.

But more recently the Pope has discouraged expectations that he would step down, saying that papal resignations should not become routine.

The Wall Street Journal