(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 04.15.2025).- As Holy Week reaches its most solemn days, the Vatican has offered a cautiously optimistic update on Pope Francis’s health, noting signs of steady recovery in his mobility, breathing, and vocal strength. Nearly a month after being discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, the 88-year-old Pontiff remains under observation at his residence in the Casa Santa Marta but has begun to scale back his reliance on high-flow oxygen support.
The Holy See Press Office, in a bulletin released Tuesday, April 15, confirmed that Pope Francis is now able to go longer intervals without supplemental oxygen. While he still receives therapeutic oxygen treatment at select times — primarily in the afternoon — this is now deemed “residual” and administered only when necessary. Alongside respiratory therapy, the Pope continues with motor rehabilitation and targeted vocal exercises, suggesting a gradual return to more robust physical and pastoral activity.
Despite the constraints of recovery, the Holy Father has remained far from idle. In recent days, he has signed off on several significant Church matters — from the approval of new decrees on heroic virtue to reforms within the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and a widely anticipated update on Mass stipends and intentions. Though his working meetings with Vatican officials are currently shorter, they remain regular.
Nevertheless, Francis’s physical absence will be felt during the most symbolically rich liturgies of the Catholic calendar. In a gesture both practical and pastoral, he has personally delegated the leadership of the major Holy Week celebrations to trusted cardinals.
Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, retired head of the Vatican’s patrimonial administration, will preside over the Chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Holy Thursday morning. Later that evening, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper — traditionally a deeply personal moment for Francis — will be celebrated without a papal presider, confirming that this year’s Holy Thursday liturgy will break from his usual practice of visiting prisons or migrant centers.
On Good Friday, the Liturgy of the Passion will be entrusted to Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, the Vatican’s point man for Eastern Churches. That night, the evocative Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum — a hallmark of Francis’s papacy for its raw imagery and themes of human suffering — will be presided over by Cardinal Baldassare Reina, his Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome. In a nod to his continued spiritual involvement, the Pope personally prepared the meditations for the Via Crucis, which are scheduled to be released at midday.
Though the Vatican has yet to confirm whether Francis will be able to attend any of the Easter Triduum liturgies in person, officials say the full liturgical schedule for St. Peter’s Basilica will be published by day’s end.
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