Pope dealt with breathing difficulty, abdominal surgery, mobility issues

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis, who had undergone surgery in 1957 to remove the upper lobe of his right lung after suffering a severe respiratory infection, was particularly susceptible to colds and bouts of bronchitis as he aged.

Pope Francis died April 21 after suffering a stroke and heart failure, said the director of Vatican City State’s department of health services. The pope had also gone into a coma.

In what was the most serious health crisis of his pontificate, he spent 38 days in Rome’s Gemelli hospital in February and March after a case of bronchitis worsened, leading to multiple infections and double pneumonia.

While hospitalized, he had several breathing “crises” and risked death, his doctors later said. He finally was released March 23, but doctors prescribed ongoing medication and therapy, saying he would need two months to convalesce.

Given his history of lung problems, several times when suffering from cold or flu symptoms, he was taken to a hospital for a CT scan or other tests. And often his difficulty reading longer speeches would linger for days or even weeks.

In March 2023, he was hospitalized for three days for what doctors said was a “respiratory infection.” He tested negative for COVID-19, but Pope Francis later said he had had “an acute and strong pneumonia, in the lower part of the lungs.”

Eight months later, Pope Francis underwent a CT scan at Rome’s Gemelli Isola Hospital to rule out pulmonary complications after canceling appointments because of what the Vatican press office had described as a slight flu.

The pope returned to his residence the same day but was put on an intravenous antibiotic treatment. A few days later, on the advice of his doctors, the pope canceled his scheduled trip to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for the U.N. climate summit. Pope Francis had told a group of health care managers that he did not have a fever, but he had respiratory difficulties and did not have the energy to do much talking. For the next several days, he had an aide read most of his prepared texts.

After his general audience Feb. 28, 2024, the pope was taken to Gemelli Isola Hospital again for what the Vatican said were “diagnostic tests,” and during an audience March 2, he told people he had bronchitis. For the next three weeks, he often had an aide read his texts for him, although he did give his Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter homilies himself.

He canceled a day of audiences and appointments Sept. 23, 2024 “as a precautionary measure” after his 11-day, four-country Southeast Asia trip and before a planned trip to Luxembourg and Belgium because of what the press office described as a “mild flu-like condition.” The rest seemed to work, and he made the trip as planned.

He also suffered mobility issues because of a bad knee and from episodes of sciatica throughout his papacy.

At a formal meeting with members of the Roman Rota, a church court, in February 2021, he began by saying, “I should speak standing up, but you know that sciatica is a somewhat bothersome guest. I apologize and I will speak seated.”

A year later, at a weekly general audience, he apologized to visitors for not walking up to greet them. “I have a problem with my right leg; a ligament in my knee is inflamed,” he said. “It’s a passing thing.”

Joking with the crowd, the then-85-year-old pope said, “They say this only comes to old people, and I don’t know why it has happened to me.”

He continued to regularly use a cane, a walker or a wheelchair after that.

Shortly after his 88th birthday, Dec. 17, 2024, he also began wearing hearing aids during his audiences and public liturgies.

In early December 2024, he fell and hit his chin on a bedside table, which meant he had a significant bruise on the right side of his face when he created 21 new cardinals Dec. 7 and for days afterward. He fell again Jan. 16, injuring but not breaking his right forearm. He wore a sling for a few days.

Pope Francis also had been hospitalized for two abdominal surgeries.

He underwent a three-hour surgery to repair a hernia June 7, 2023, and spent nine days at the main campus of the Gemelli hospital, where St. John Paul II had been hospitalized multiple times. The procedure on Pope Francis, under general anesthesia, was performed using a surgical mesh to strengthen the repair and prevent the recurrence of a hernia. Surgeons also removed several adhesions or bands of scar tissue that his doctors said had formed after previous surgeries decades ago.

The pope had spent seven days in the hospital in July 2021 after undergoing colon surgery to treat diverticulitis, an inflammation of bulges in the intestine. Pope Francis repeatedly denied that doctors had found cancer during the operation.

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