EBN- The Vatican announced that Pope Francis is suffering from bilateral pneumonia, in a new health setback for the 88-year-old pontiff.
The new diagnosis, which means the pneumonia has affected both lungs, comes while he was receiving treatment at a hospital in Rome, where he was admitted last Friday. He had previously been diagnosed with bronchitis.
The Vatican said the pope was suffering from a polymicrobial respiratory infection, and that tests showed a “complex clinical picture requiring appropriate hospitalization.”
He explained that the pneumonia would require drug treatment, as the disease was discovered after the Pope underwent a chest CT scan on Tuesday afternoon.
According to the statement, the Pope was in good spirits and spent the day resting, praying and reading. He expressed his gratitude for the “closeness he feels at this moment” and asked people to pray for him.
This is the pope’s fourth hospital stay. In 2023, he underwent abdominal surgery and received treatment for pneumonia earlier that year.
As a young man in his native Argentina, he had part of one lung removed after a lung infection, leaving him vulnerable to respiratory diseases.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Vatican canceled an audience the pope was scheduled to hold on Saturday, and announced that he would not hold Mass on Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The pope’s continued hospital stay comes just two weeks before the start of the annual Christian Lent period, which begins on Ash Wednesday, which this year falls on March 5.
Last year, during the week before Easter known as Holy Week, the pope did not attend a procession at Rome’s Colosseum on Good Friday to preserve his health, and later led tens of thousands in Easter celebrations.
