The 86-year-old pope, who had been hospitalized since March 29 for treatment of bronchitis, stopped his car and got out to greet well-wishers and reporters waiting outside the hospital.

Pope Francis enjoyed a pizza “party” with staff on his second night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital and was expected to be released from the hospital April 1, the Vatican press office said.

Pope Francis used his third day at Rome’s Gemelli hospital to visit children hospitalized in the oncology ward and to confer the sacrament of baptism on a tiny infant named Miguel Angel.

The Vatican’s prosecuting attorney has leveled additional charges against four of the defendants who have been on trial since July 2021 for their alleged roles in the Vatican’s failed investment in a property in London.

A culture of nonviolence will become more widespread when countries and citizens resort less and less to the use of weapons, Pope Francis said.

After the Vatican said Pope Francis was hospitalized for a pulmonary infection March 29, Catholic bishops in the United States called on the faithful to pray for the Holy Father’s recovery.

The Catholic Church formally “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery,'” a Vatican statement said.

After spending the night in the hospital, Pope Francis is “steadily improving” from a respiratory infection and continuing his planned course of treatment, the Vatican press office said.

Like St. Paul, Christians must not only know Jesus with their heads but invite him into their hearts through a personal encounter with Christ, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis went to Rome’s Gemelli hospital March 29 for “some previously planned tests,” the Vatican press office said, providing no further details.