(ZENIT News / Rome, 30.03.2025).- Pope Francis has been back in the Vatican for a week, after a full 37-day hospitalization. Just one day before completing that first week, on Saturday, March 29, Dr Sergio Alfieri, the Doctor who treated him at the Gemelli Hospital, said that the Pope was showing «a truly surprising improvement.»
That wasn’t the only thing Alfieri revealed. He also said: «I find him very lively.» The statement was based on a routine medical visit Alfieri made to the Pontiff on Wednesday, March 26, at the Vatican. «I think that, if he doesn’t reach 100%, he’ll return to 90% of what he was before,» he assured.
According to Dr Alfieri, the Pope has managed to recover his voice a little more and is increasingly less dependent on oxygen. The limited mobility of the Pope’s arm, which was very evident on Sunday, March 23, when he reappeared in public, is due to an injury before his admission to the Hospital. Alfieri will make weekly medical visits to the Pope. On this first visit on Wednesday, March 26, the Pope joked with the Doctor: when the Doctor told him he looked like a man with the mind of a 50 or 60-year old, the Pope replied: «Not 50, but 40.»
In the message for the Sunday address of March 30, the Pope wrote:
«Let us live this Lent, especially during the Jubilee, as a time of healing. I am also experiencing it this way, in soul and body. Therefore, I give my heartfelt thanks to all those who, like the Savior, are instruments of healing for their neighbour, with their word and their knowledge, with their affection and their prayer. Frailty and illness are experiences that unite us all; but with greater reason we are brothers and sisters in the salvation that Christ has given us.»
On Tuesday, March 25, the Holy See Press Office confirmed that the Pope concelebrated Mass on the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord in the Chapel on the second floor of Casa Santa Marta, his residence. The Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, said that only the most relevant issues are being brought to his attention.
The Pope’s Office for Liturgical Celebrations has confirmed that the Holy Father will not preside over the Jubilee for the Sick, scheduled for April 5 and 6. The Pope has appointed Monsignor Rino Fisichella to replace him for this particular Jubilee. Pope Francis is under a two-month prescription not to attend public events. After this week, he has only one month and three weeks left before he can do so.
