Pope Francis: the facts (and narratives) of illness

Communication regarding Pope Francis’ hospitalization has been somewhat uneven in recent days. In the beginning, there was talk of a highly complex medical case involving a patient who was not responding to treatment or new therapies. Then, the Holy See Press Office officially spoke of bilateral pneumonia, which, in any case, was added to a complex clinical picture.

Perhaps we are not at the final stages of the pontificate, but after the communication that came on February 18—the one announcing pneumonia in both lungs caused by multiple infections—the tone of the medical bulletins regarding Pope Francis suddenly changed for some days. In February 21, however, the medical team who is taking care of Pope Francis held a press briefing. The doctors said clearly that Pope Francis was not out of danger, praised the role of Pope Francis’ nurse and personal assistant, Massimiliano Strappetti, and noted that the medical team is not going to hide anything, and that the chronic part of his sickness will stay.

After the presser, the communication on the Pope returned to the normality of his sickness. A respiratory crisis was reported on February 22, and a beginning of kidney failure was observed on February 23.

Before that, however, we heard of how the Pope even reads the newspapers, sits in an armchair, spends a peaceful night, and shows signs of improvement. Some have even gone so far as to speak of the Holy Father’s full recovery. And it is known that the Pope, even from the hospital, continues to call the parish of Gaza every day, as he has done since the beginning of the conflict in the Strip.

What was the reason for the change in tone? Why the suddenly cheerful—even if not quite rosy—depiction of Pope Francis’s progress?

For three years, Pope Francis has often had episodes of respiratory difficulty, which the official communication has defined as a “cold.” Because of a “cold,” Pope Francis was unable to go to Dubai for COP 28, a trip he was very keen on. But there was also a hospitalization at Gemelli from March 29 to April 3, 2023, due to what was described as a “respiratory infection.”

No one has officially said it, but the Pope seems to be a victim of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It cannot improve but only degenerate. And yet, it is a disease that can be treated with a good mix of drugs combined with particular attention to diet as well as careful management of time and activity during the day.

Pope Francis, however, has never spared himself. He does not have a personal doctor, and the director of the Vatican health services does not have the Pope among his patients. While the Pope was hospitalized, the usual Vatican rumors began to leak out that the Pope is not a disciplined patient, that in these years, he has never listened to the doctors’ advice, and that he has not spared himself.

It wasn’t just a way to shift responsibility in the event of a sudden death. It was also a repositioning of the narrative about the pontiff. Some newspapers began to describe him as irritable or particularly nervous and abandoned the rhetoric of the Pope of the people that had always characterized them.

These facts do not surprise the Vatican observer, who has always known the stories about the Pope’s character and his way of managing personal relationships. The fact, however, that these stories are now being published, or at least alluded to, represents an important change of perspective.

Towards the end of the pontificate, everyone begins to reposition themselves. So, why did the narrative change also concern the Pope’s condition?

The most logical answer is that Pope Francis wanted it as long as he could. Then, doctors convinced the Pope that it was better to provide a realistic scenario.

Nobody has seen Pope Francis during this hospitalization. For security reasons, there are four or six Vatican policemen around the Pope, along with nurses and doctors. Not even the sostituto (i.e. the deputy of the Vatican State Secretariat), who manages the day-to-day issues and meets with the Pope regularly, has reportedly visited Pope Francis during these days.

We know that Pope Francis wants it to be known that he is well, that he is actually healing, and that he is still at the center of everything. The Pope is used to controlling the narrative about himself.

In recent years, he has written three autobiographical books and been interviewed to give his version of his relationship with Benedict XVI. Francis’s pontificate is attentive to the media legacy he will leave.

However, this pontificate will always draw media attention. The more Pope Francis isolates himself in the Vatican through his actions, the more interviews, spontaneous declarations, and sudden positions taken on the sidelines of audiences will multiply.

Since he took ill, none of that media manipulation and narrative management has been possible for Pope Francis.  He was not the one who read the speeches; therefore, he could not integrate them, change them, or cut them according to his feelings. Ultimately,  he tried to have a direct and personal meeting with those who went to the audience with him. He was, however, increasingly tired.

The more the Pope distances himself from the people, the more he loses strength in the collective imagination. The more the Pope loses media presence, the more one can notice the contradictions of the pontificate. There is a media pontificate and a real pontificate. Never before have the two begun to coincide as they do these days.

This is because, when thinking about the handover, brutal sincerity is the only way to understand which direction one wants to go in the future. Pope Francis knows this. Already after his first operation, in 2021, he came to bitterly tell the Jesuits in Slovakia that they wanted him dead. This realization led him to accelerate his decisions, which became exponential after Benedict XVI’s death.

These days, the continuous signs of improvement are striking and unusual in an 88-year-old patient who contracts bilateral pneumonia. But the total absence of images of the Pope is also striking. All communication about the Pope remains official, with a few discordant voices, and all to be understood.

While it is said that Pope Francis can barely speak. There are rumors of the Pope’s feverish activity in the hospital. Nothing is confirmed. The Pope, it was said, has summoned Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, Pope Francis’s trusted man for reforms. The Hoy See Press Office has dismissed this visit.

The rumor might come from a fact.  One of the last reforms that Francis would want to sign may be that of the Conclave, even if objectively, at this time, there would be no reason:  the Conclave has a record number of cardinals, more than two-thirds created by Pope Francis, and any decision to change would go to upset the balance.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, was also announced at the Pope’s bedside upon his return from Africa. Parolin did not change his program in Burkina Faso by an iota, demonstrating that there is a Church that goes beyond the person of the Pope. The Secretary of State has not visited the Pope yet.

Parolin will manage the Conclave in the Sistine Chapel when it comes, but the entire pre-conclave will be handled by Cardinal Giovan Battista Re, dean for five years and extended by Pope Francis. As Francis established, the Cardinals should have voted for his successor, and Parolin would have been the dean. Pope Francis did not allow this.

Since no vice-Pope exists, everyone is waiting for news on the Pope’s health.

However, the news paints a perhaps too optimistic picture compared to Francis’ pathology. It is the sign of a pontificate that, through the media, has hidden its limits and the problems raised by many decisions. The fact that the Pope controls the narrative says a lot about the proper direction of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

As we know, the Pope read the newspapers daily as long as he could,  and he received the Eucharist. But, during the days in the hospital,  it has never been reported that the Pope presided over a Mass celebrated in his room, perhaps by the hospital chaplain. The Pope, it was said on Sunday, February 16, followed the Mass on TV.  The participation in a Mass popped up on the release of February 23. This decision not to show himself to be a Catholic to the core is striking, just when the whole world is looking to the Pope with hope.

It is not possible to know whether Francis has imposed the narrative change.  But there has been a change, at least for a while, which could only be decided at the highest level.