POPE FRANCIS WAS able to have breakfast in his armchair at the hospital this morning, the Vatican, a day after reporting a slight improvement in his condition.

The 88-year-old was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital last Friday with bronchitis, but it later developed into pneumonia in both lungs, sparking widespread alarm.

In an update yesterday evening, the Vatican said the pope’s blood tests had shown a “slight improvement” and his clinical conditions were stable.

He had enough energy to receive Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for a 20-minute visit yesterday afternoon.

In a statement afterwards, Meloni said she found him “alert and responsive”.

“We joked as always. He hasn’t lost his proverbial sense of humour,” she said.

The double pneumonia diagnosis comes after the pope has suffered a series of issues in recent years, from colon and hernia surgery to problems walking.

The Vatican has been issuing regular updates, however banal, in a bid to counter widespread speculation – particularly online – that he is dying or even dead.

In yesterday evening’s statement, it said the pope had also done some work with colleagues.

“The blood tests, evaluated by the medical staff, show a slight improvement, particularly in inflammatory indices,” it said.

Following breakfast, he “dedicated himself to work activities with his closest collaborators”, it added.

A Vatican source had yesterday said the pope was “breathing on his own. His heart is holding up very well”.

Prayers for the pope

The pope, who has been head of the Catholic Church since 2013, keeps a full schedule despite his age and ailments, and this year is busy with celebrations of the holy Jubilee year.

But he had struggled to read his homilies in the days before his hospital admission.

The pontiff had part of his right lung cut away when he was 21, after developing pleurisy that almost killed him.

The Vatican has cancelled a papal audience on Saturday and said the pope would not attend a mass on Sunday.

But it has yet to announce plans for his weekly Angelus prayer, which is held on Sunday at midday.

Last week he missed it, but during previous hospitalisations, he has delivered it from the balcony of the Gemelli, which has a special papal suite.

Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, called on all parishes in the Italian capital to pray for the pope’s recovery.

US Vice President JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, had a similar message.

“Let’s all say a prayer for Pope Francis, who appears to have some serious health issues,” he wrote on social media.

Candles, some with pictures of the pope on them, have been set at the bottom of a statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital.

“I hope he recovers as soon as possible because this is the Jubilee year and he has so much to do for young people, for everyone, it’s very sad,” said Annamaria Santoro, an Italian woman whose son was in the same hospital.

In his newly published memoir, Hope, Francis remarked that “each time a pope takes ill, the winds of a conclave always feel as if they are blowing”.

While Francis said the “reality is that even during the days of surgery I never thought of resigning”, he nevertheless acknowledged that resigning is “always a possibility” and that should he resign, he would “remain in Rome, as emeritus bishop”.

He further writes in his memoir that “the reality is, quite simply, that I am old”.

Francis added that he “had the feeling” that his papacy would be “brief, no more than three or four years”.

“I never imagined that I would have made all those journeys to more than sixty countries,” he wrote.

He also reveals that he will not be buried in St Peter’s Basilica, writing: “The Vatican is the home of my last service, not my eternal home.”

He also described the funeral service planned for him as “excessive” and has “arranged with the master of ceremonies to lighten it”.

-© AFP 2025 and with additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper