Pope Francis appeared his first public appearance on Sunday after spending more than five weeks in the hospital, where he survived a severe state of pneumonia. Doctors said twice threatened the life of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
The 88 -year -old Pope offered a blessing on Sunday from Jimili Hospital in Rome. The Vatican broadcaster also in English also read a statement of the ink issued by the Apostolic Newspaper Office.
In this, Pope Francis said it was “sad from the heavy Israeli bombing in Gaza.”
A large crowd gathered from the main square at Gemili Hospital, including patients wandering abroad to see it personally. The Pope waved from the balcony and smiled shortly through the microphone, although the doctors said that his voice was weaker because of his illness. The Holy Father made the cross of the crowd. Francis was later unloaded from the hospital and will return to the Vatican to start at least two months of rest, rehabilitation and recovery.
Pope Francis is scheduled to be emptied from the hospital on Sunday: Doctors
Pope Francis makes gestures during his first public appearance within five weeks, on the day he was discharged from Gemili Hospital, in Rome, Italy, March 23, 2025. (Reuters/Yara Nardi)
His discharge comes after 38 days of ascension and medical landing, which raised the possibility of the resignation or funeral of the papacy.
Doctors, who announced his planned release at a press conference on Saturday evening, said that the Holy Father should refrain from meeting large groups of people or practicing himself, but in the end he should be able to resume all his regular activities. This was the longest hospital entry to Francis in Papuy for 12 years and the second longest period in the last papal history.
In the Vatican, on the third Sunday of the Lenten season pending Easter, pilgrims flocked as they did throughout the year to Basilica in St. Peter to participate in the Holy Year 2025. They operated the Saint Peter Square and advanced across the Holy door in groups, while large TV screens were operated in the square for broadcasting the Francis Hospital, which lives directly, according to the Associated Press.
No special arrangements were taken in Dumus Santa Marta, the Vatican Hotel next to Bazilica, where Francis lives in a two -room wing on the second floor, according to AP. Francis will be able to access additional oxygen and medical care 24 hours a day, although his personal doctor, Dr. Luigi Carbon, said he hoped that Francis will gradually need less breathing and less than help with recovering his lungs.
While pneumonia has been successfully treated, Francis will continue to take oral medications for some time to treat fungal infection in its lungs and continue respiratory and physical physical therapy.
“For three or four days he was asking when he could go home, so he is very happy,” Carbon said.
Dr. Sergio Alviri, the medical and surgical president of Gemili, who coordinated the medical team Francis, stressed that not all patients who develop such a severe condition of double pneumonia survival, and much less than the hospital. He said that the life of Francis was in danger twice, during the severe respiratory crises, and that the Pope at that time lost a concept of typical humor.
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“But one morning, we went to listen to his lungs and asked him how he was doing. When he answered,” I am still alive, “we knew that he was fine and he regained his good humor.”
Alfiri said that the Holy Father was unprecedented and never lost consciousness.
Alfieri confirmed that Francis was still facing a problem in speaking due to the damage to his lungs and respiratory muscles. But he said that such problems were normal, especially in older patients, and he expected his voice to return to normal in the end.
Vatican spokesman, Matteo Brunei, refused to confirm any coming events, including a crowd on April 8 with King Charles III or Francis participating in Easter services at the end of the month. But Carbon said he hoped that Francis would be good enough to travel to Türkiye at the end of May to participate in an important ecumenical memory.
Francis also returns to the Vatican in the labor of the Holy Year, a celebration that was scheduled to pay more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome this year. The Pope has already been absent from many of the jubilee fans, and it is assumed that he will be absent from several others, but Vatican officials say that his absence did not significantly affect the number of expected pilgrims who arrive.
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Saint John Paul II registered only longer in the hospital in 1981, when he spent 55 days in Gemelli to perform a simple surgery and treat infection.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
