Pope concelebrates Feast of St Joseph in hospital chapel

Elise Ann Allen/ Crux• March 19, 2025

On Wednesday morning the Pope concelebrated Mass for the liturgical solemnity of Saint Joseph in the chapel attached to his private suite on the 10th floor of Gemelli Hospital.

He spent the rest of the day alternating between his various therapies, prayer and some work activities.

As Pope Francis marks 33 days in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital fighting double pneumonia, the official medical information provided to journalists has become less detailed and less frequent, which in this case would appear a positive sign.

In a March 19 statement, the Vatican said that the Pope’s clinical status “continues to improve”. The statement confirmed that doctors have “suspended non-invasive mechanical ventilation” for the Pope, when an oxygen mask is tightly sealed over the nose and mouth, and that the Pope has also reduced his use of high-flow oxygen through nasal cannula tubes.

Meanwhile, he continues to undergo and show improvement in motor and respiratory therapy, the Vatican said.

Doctors at the hospital, according to the Holy See Press Office, believe that the Pope’s respiratory infection is “under control”, though it has not been completely eliminated, while his blood tests are all normal and he continues to have no fever.

No details are available yet for how the papal liturgies during Holy Week will be celebrated, or whether Pope Francis is still expected to be in the hospital; however, a recent announcement from Buckingham Palace that a planned meeting between the Pope and King Charles and Queen Camilla is scheduled to take place on April 8 indicates that the Pope might be back at the Vatican in time for Holy Week events.

The Vatican’s recent medical bulletins on the Pope’s health – today’s included – have differed from those put out at the beginning of the Pope’s hospitalisation; these were published nightly and contained extensive and detailed information about his diagnosis, test results and overall clinical status.

Subsequent statements closely tracked the progression of his illness, following the Pope being admitted to hospital on Feb. 14 for treatment of a complex respiratory infection and double pneumonia. These statements included at times somewhat intimate details about medical crises, such as the Pope inhaling his own vomit during a bronchospasm – a tightening and restriction of the tubes connecting the lungs to the windpipe – which required suctioning.

However, as Francis’s hospital stay has continued and surpassed the one-month mark, the statements have become less frequent, and less detailed, coming out every other day instead of nightly; and now every few days.

The reason for this, doctors have said, is that the Pope is making slow but steady progress, and that recovery typically is slow – especially for an 88-year-old pontiff – and oftentimes there simply is no new information to report.

As a result, the Holy See Press Office said today that in light of the Pope’s continued improvement and clinical stability, they plan to provide further updates on Friday, March 21, and on Monday, March 24, after which there will not be another official medical bulletin until sometime next week.

All considered when papal health is concerned, an uneventful day, or several, with slow but consistent improvement and no noteworthy developments to publish, is perhaps the best possible scenario. Indeed, as the saying goes, sometimes no news is actually good news.

Photo: Drawings are laid at the statue of John Paul II at Gemelli Hospital where Pope Francis is hospitalised, Rome, 19 March 2025. (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images.)