TRANSCRIPT
After spending a week in hospital with breathing difficulties, the Vatican says the health of 88-year-old Pope Francis has deteriorated to a critical condition.
While being treated at Rome's Gemelli hospital with a prolonged asthma-like respiratory crisis, he has since been diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs.
In a statement released today the Vatican says the pope is now requiring supplemental oxygen and blood transfusions.
Austen Ivereigh is a Catholic journalist and the biographer of Pope Francis.
He says the pope is taking it day by day.
“I'm still worried. I'm concerned. But I don't think he's in any imminent danger, that's what the doctors have been saying to us. He's not out of danger, but he's not in any immediate danger. And it reminds me, really, if ever you've had an elderly relative who is in hospital with a severe condition, you have to take it day by day, and we just don't know at the moment. We do know it's going to be a long process of healing. The infection has to be dealt with and then it'll take time. And that's where we are at the moment.”
Outside the Gemelli hospital in Rome, groups of nuns and priests from around the world gathered to pray for a speedy recovery.
Edgar Henriquez is a priest from Chile, he says his thoughts are with the pontiff.
"We are here to pray for the Holy Father. We have all come together in a very spontaneous way. Some nuns organised this rosary but we have all joined in this prayer. I believe that the Pope needs the unity and prayer of the Church to accompany and support him at this difficult time as well. Let us ask God for much strength for him and, if God wills it, physical health and above all spiritual health at this time."
Pope Francis has been the head of the Catholic Church since 2013 and has suffered a number of health issues in recent years.
His latest hospitalisation however is drawing questions over his ability to continue as the leader of the world's almost 1.4 billion Catholics.
Austen Ivereigh says there is natural speculation over the future of the role.
“The Curia, or the Vatican bureaucracy, is like any bureaucracy. It always tries to plan for change. And there's definitely an atmosphere here in Rome at the moment, there's a sense of uncertainty. No organisation likes uncertainty and if people are, of course, talking about the future, that's inevitable. The Pope, by the way, knows that, I mean he jokes, you know, that every time, you know, he coughs, that there's an air of a conclave already. He knows this. I don't particularly sense that people are conspiring or gathering, but I think the Cardinals have been aware, I would say generally over the last few years, you know, we are dealing with a pope in his late 80s with a lung condition. You know, obviously people are going to be thinking about the future. Why wouldn't they? And that's sensible. And that's right.”
Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi told Italian reporters he has not ruled out the possibility of Pope Francis stepping down.
While the pope himself has not ruled out resigning, as his predecessor Benedict the 16th did in 2013, he has previously said the papacy is a job for life.
“I think he will carry on if he can. He has no problem with being a frail pope. He has no problem with doing things differently. We've seen him in a wheelchair the last few years and often having a bronchitic condition. None of this prevents him being the pope. If, however, I think they said to him, 'look, your health is going to be a major issue from now on. You've got a severe impairment here which will require regular hospitalisation.' In other words, if it's the long-term condition that he's often spoke about, that would be probably a cause for him to think about resignation. But my sense is it's way too early to even begin to think about that because, really, what we've got now is a struggle over the next few weeks, and that struggle is about the infection that's there.”
Meanwhile, the Vatican is carrying on with Holy Year celebrations without the pope.
Hailing from around the world, deacons are gathering at the Vatican for their special Jubilee weekend, a once-every-quarter-century celebration of Catholicism.
Missing the event for the second consecutive week, the Vatican says the pope will not appear in public on Sunday to lead prayer with pilgrims.
Austen Ivereigh says it is unlike Pope Francis to miss an event like this.
"For him, the papacy, you know, it's a full on thing. I mean, he doesn't take holidays. For him, as we've seen this year in the Jubilee, I mean, here we are, surrounded by people and pilgrims arriving from across the world, the Pope has wanted to meet them all. You know, and sometimes I think some of us have been saying, do you really have to meet, you know, the Boy Scouts of Bergamo? Do you have to meet these groups? But for him, they're all children of God. They're all as important as everybody else. And so I think there's no 20 per cent papacy for him. You know, it's all or nothing.”
But despite his absence, Jesus Cardenas, a deacon from Texas, says hope for his recovery remains.
"It was so magic (passing through the Holy Door) because it is a year of hope. Right now, us (in the) church, we are living the illness with Pope Francis and the uncertainty, but hope is always there. And we are praying for him and the hope of a better world, even with the situation we are living (in) with wars all around. And we know and we have the hope that things are going to get better."
