Pope diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — After undergoing a CT scan Feb. 18, Pope Francis was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia, the Vatican said.

“The follow-up chest CT scan which the Holy Father underwent this afternoon,” the Vatican bulletin said, “demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia, which required additional drug therapy.”

“Laboratory tests, chest X-rays and the Holy Father’s clinical condition continue to present a complex picture,” the evening bulletin said.

Doctors had said the day before that tests revealed a “polymicrobial infection” of the 88-year-old pope’s respiratory system, meaning it is caused by a virus-bacteria combination. The infection, along with the “bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis,” which the pope suffers from after years of respiratory problems and repeated bouts of bronchitis, “required the use of cortisone antibiotic therapy,” it said, which made “therapeutic treatment more complex.”

Still, the statement said, “Pope Francis is in good spirits. This morning he received the Eucharist, and throughout the day he alternated rest with prayer and reading texts.”

Pope Francis thanked people “for the closeness he feels at this time and asks, with a grateful heart, that we continue to pray for him,” the press office said.

Earlier in the day, the Vatican had announced that “due to the Holy Father’s health condition,” his appointments had been canceled through Feb. 22.

In addition, the note said, “Pope Francis has delegated Archbishop Rino Fisichella,” pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization and chief organizer of the Holy Year 2025, to celebrate the Mass and ordinations of permanent deacons Feb. 23.

Pope Francis was hospitalized Feb. 14 after more than a week of suffering from bronchitis and difficulty breathing.

A source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said Feb. 18 that the pope was breathing on his own without the need for supplemental oxygen.

A statue of St. John Paul II stands outside the Gemelli hospital, which the Polish pontiff helped make known around the world because of multiple stays there, particularly after a would-be assassin shot him in May 1981.

As Pope Francis is being treated on the hospital’s 10th floor, in the same suite of rooms St. John Paul and his entourage would use, people are leaving flowers, cards and lighted votive candles at the statue.

Father Jim Sichko, a priest of the Diocese of Lexington, Ky., left a card Feb. 18 along with a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. Although he did not sign his name, he used the hashtags #MissionaryOfMercy and #BourbonFairy, which led to his account on X.

By the time a Catholic News Service photographer arrived at the statue not long after Father Sichko had gone, the bottle of bourbon had been removed.

“Maybe someone brought it to the pope,” he wrote in a message to CNS, which was unable to confirm the whereabouts of the beverage.

The Vatican had announced earlier that the pope would not be holding his weekly general audience Feb. 19. The Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan, who distribute free audience tickets in Rome to visitors from the U.S. immediately sent an email to all the individuals, couples, families and groups who had requested tickets.

Mercy Sister Maria Juan Anderson, coordinator of the Bishops’ Office for U.S. Visitors to the Vatican, said they had expected to distribute 650 tickets, which included four pilgrim groups from U.S. parishes and universities.

Fortunately, only a handful of people missed the email: a newlywed couple hoping for the pope’s blessing, one family and two priests, she said. “Everyone of course understands … and they all said they were praying for the Holy Father.”

The pope, who underwent surgery in 1957 to remove part of one of his lungs after suffering a severe respiratory infection, has been susceptible to colds and bouts of bronchitis.

In March 2023, he was hospitalized at Gemelli for three days for what doctors said was a respiratory infection. Pope Francis later said it had been “an acute and strong pneumonia.

This story was updated at 3:15 p.m.

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