Angelus News | April 21, 2023 | Vol. 8 No

POPE WATCH
A papal bounce back
A
case of bronchitis sent Pope
Francis to the hospital for an
unexpected three-day stay and
caused the Vatican to change its Holy
Week plans.
The 86-year-old pontiff was taken to
Rome’s Gemelli Hospital March 29
hours after he was seen looking unwell
following his weekly Wednesday General
Audience in St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican originally said the
pope was taken to the hospital for
“previously planned tests,” but later
changed its story, saying that the pope
had complained of “some respiratory
difficulties” in recent days and would
be hospitalized for a few days.
Tests later showed that the pope had
bronchitis, and he was treated with
intravenous antibiotics for a respiratory
infection.
But Francis kept an active schedule
while in the hospital. He prayed in
a hospital chapel and received the
Eucharist. He also spent half an hour
visiting children in the cancer ward
and brought rosaries, large chocolate
Easter eggs, and copies of the book “Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”
He also baptized a tiny infant,
“Miguel Angel,” who was at the hospital
for tests and enjoyed a pizza “party”
the night of Thursday, March 30 with
the doctors, nurses, assistants, and
members of the Vatican police who
had helped him during his stay.
As he left the hospital Saturday, April
1, the pope stopped his car and got
out to greet well-wishers and reporters
waiting outside the hospital.
“I’m still alive,” Pope Francis joked to
reporters who asked how he was doing.
There he also embraced a sobbing
mother, whose daughter had died the
night before. He reached out to the
father, too, and holding their hands,
he prayed with them. The pope then
traced a cross on the forehead of each
of them and gave them both a kiss on
the cheek.
Reporters present said he also signed
the cast of a boy who said he broke his
arm playing soccer.
Before returning to the Vatican, he
stopped to pray at the Basilica of St.
Mary Major, a stop he makes before
and after every trip abroad and a stop
he also made in July 2021 after undergoing
colon surgery at the Gemelli.
There he prayed for the children he
had met “in the hospital’s pediatric
oncology and children’s neurosurgery
wards,” and “all the sick and those
suffering from illness and the loss of
their loved ones,” the Vatican press
office said.
The next day, the pope delivered the
homily at Palm Sunday Mass in St.
Peter’s Square with some 60,000 people
in attendance, although Cardinal
Leonardo Sandri, vice dean of the
College of Cardinals, was the main
celebrant at the altar.
“Christ, in his abandonment, stirs
us to seek him and to love him and
those who are themselves abandoned,
for in them we see not only people in
need, but Jesus himself,” he said in the
homily after listening to the account
of Jesus’ Passion from St. Matthew’s
Gospel.
Italian media reported that multiple
Roman cardinals had been scheduled
to preside over the remaining Holy
Week liturgies in the Vatican, but it
was not clear which, if any, of them
Pope Francis planned to attend.
Reporting courtesy of Catholic News
Service.
Papal Prayer Intention for April: We pray for the spread of
peace and nonviolence, by decreasing the use of weapons by
States and citizens.
2 • ANGELUS • April 21, 2023