Sepsis fears in Pope’s pneumonia battle as Holy Year celebrations start
The Pope is ‘not out of danger’
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Your support makes all the difference.Despite Pope Francis’s ongoing hospitalization for a respiratory infection and pneumonia, Holy Year celebrations continued at the Vatican on Saturday.
The 88-year-old pontiff remains under close medical observation, with doctors anticipating he will need to stay in the hospital for at least another week.
While the Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, reported that the Pope had a restful night, concerns remain about potential complications.
Medical experts have highlighted the risk of sepsis, a severe blood infection that can arise from pneumonia, as a primary concern. However, as of Friday, there were no signs of sepsis developing, and Francis was responding positively to his prescribed medications.
This detailed update on the Pope’s condition offers a clearer picture of the challenges he faces, while also providing some reassurance about his current progress.
“He is not out of danger,” said his personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone. “So like all fragile patients I say they are always on the golden scale: In other words, it takes very little to become unbalanced.”
Francis, who has chronic lung disease, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened.
Doctors first diagnosed the complex viral, bacterial and fungal respiratory tract infection and then the onset of pneumonia in both lungs. They prescribed “absolute rest” and a combination of cortisone and antibiotics, along with supplemental oxygen when he needs it.
Carbone, who along with Francis' personal nurse Massimiliano Strappetti organized care for him at the Vatican, acknowledged he had insisted on staying at the Vatican to work, even after he was sick, “because of institutional and private commitments." He was cared for by a cardiologist and infectious specialist in addition to his personal medical team before being hospitalized.
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the head of medicine and surgery at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, said the biggest threat facing Francis was that some of the germs that are currently located in his respiratory system pass into the bloodstream, causing sepsis. Sepsis can lead to organ failure and death.
“Sepsis, with his respiratory problems and his age, would be really difficult to get out of,” Alfieri told a press conference Friday at Gemelli. “The English say ‘knock on wood,’ we say ‘touch iron.’ Everyone touch what they want,” he said as he tapped the microphone. “But this is the real risk in these cases: that these germs pass to the bloodstream.”
“He knows he's in danger,” Alfieri added. “And he told us to relay that.”
Deacons, meanwhile, were gathering at the Vatican for their special Jubilee weekend. Francis got sick at the start of the Vatican’s Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration of Catholicism. This weekend, Francis was supposed to have celebrated deacons, a ministry in the church that precedes ordination to the priesthood.
In his place, the Holy Year organizer will celebrate Sunday’s Mass, the Vatican said. And for the second weekend in a row, Francis was expected to skip his traditional Sunday noon blessing, which he could have delivered from Gemelli if he were up to it.
Beyond that, doctors have said his recovery will take time and that regardless he will still have to live with his chronic respiratory problems back at the Vatican.
“He has to get over this infection and we all hope he gets over it,” said Alfieri. “But the fact is, all doors are open.”