The Vatican is well known for being cagey about disclosing the health of a pontiff which has often led to fevered speculation in the press about his true condition.
Soon after Pope St. John Paul II was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital in 2005, he joked that he had been looking at daily newspapers to see “how my illness is going.”
But Pope Francis’ emergency admission to the Gemelli this week has been especially mysterious, chaotic, and perplexing, leading to even more speculation than usual.
The world first learned something was awry shortly after 4pm on Wednesday when Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a short statement simply saying, “the Holy Father has been at the Gemelli since this afternoon for some previously scheduled checkups.”
It then emerged through Italian media that his condition was more serious than just a routine examination, with an ambulance called and the Pope reportedly suffering from a “heart crisis” that led to respiratory problems. Scheduled audiences for the next two days were cancelled.
Around 8.30pm, Bruni issued a second statement contradicting the first. “In the past few days, Pope Francis has complained of some respiratory difficulties,” he disclosed, and so was admitted to the Gemelli “for some medical checks.” These checks discovered a “respiratory infection” that was not Covid-19 related but which would “require a few days of appropriate hospital medical treatment.”
This mystified Vatican watchers including editorial staff at the semi-official Vatican news aggregator site Il Sismografo who observed that, at the Pope’s weekly general audience on Wednesday, Francis showed no symptoms of a respiratory infection or bronchitis. He did exhibit expressions of pain when being helped into the popemobile, but he was “very present, dynamic and energetic, and made over 13 improvised, off-the-cuff” comments, some very lengthy.
“It did not appear that the Pontiff was in a precarious or difficult health condition,” Il Sismografo wrote.
In five subsequent statements over 48 hours, the Vatican then painted a very positive picture of the Pope’s health and rapid recovery, reporting the day after his admission that he was already reading the newspapers, back to work, and eating pizza with staff in the evening.
Today they supplied video and photographs of him visiting a children’s cancer ward at the Gemelli, (despite his alleged bronchial infection and, unlike others present, not wearing a mask) where he also baptised a baby, and announcing he will be attending Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Palm Sunday. The Pope will have welcomed such positive press coverage, especially coming just days after the world’s media reported on protests against his restrictions of the traditional Latin Mass.
Quick Recovery
Also, for someone of his age hospitalized only two days ago, he seems to have recovered remarkably quickly. In an article posted on Friday, Il Sismografo reiterated that the Pope showed no signs of respiratory or cardiovascular problems before being taken to the hospital. It then pointed to a couple of other story elements that did not make sense.
“It is plausible that the Pope had planned clinical checks for the afternoon of Wednesday 29th March, as has been officially said, but this does not square with the fact that an interview with RAI1 [Italy’s state broadcaster] and then other private audiences were scheduled and organized after lunch,” the website observed.
It would have made more sense, it added, to have scheduled the check-up the day before when, as on every Tuesday, the Pope has no public engagements in order to focus on internal duties. “Deciding to have this check-up on Wednesday afternoon doesn’t square with Pope Bergoglio’s habits,” it said.
Of course, the Pope, now 86, could have a serious underlying condition or it could really have been an emergency following a heart attack. The Vatican made no mention of these scenarios, however, nor the considerable weight gain he’s had in recent weeks which might have hastened the hospital visit. Sources close to Francis say that for the past several months he has had a large entourage of doctors and nurses, much larger than before, pointing to a possible worsening health situation.
Whatever the true state of his condition, and the reasons for his hospitalisation, he will no doubt be grateful for prayers.
Edward Pentin
Bergoglio is a patient of reiki, an occult healing practice. His Buddhist reiki therapist said he’d live to the age of 140. Looks like his Qi energy has come to his rescue again.
I presume that’s an April Fool joke.
His face looks thinner, and his eyes are more sunken. I read many Vatican insider comments saying that Pope Francis is dying, and actually only has weeks or a few months to live. Discharged from the hospital so quickly, I would not at all be surprised if he’s back in the hospital just as fast.
And the million $ question is:
WAS THE POPE VAXXED?