Immediately before leaving Rome’s Gemelli hospital after more than five weeks of treatment for breathing difficulties, double pneumonia and infections, Pope Francis greeted hundreds of people who gathered outside the hospital March 23.
With a very weak voice, Pope Francis thanked the crowd, waving his hands and giving a thumbs up.
He also pointed to a woman carrying a yellow-wrapped bouquet of flowers and told the crowd, “She’s good.”
An aide had pushed Pope Francis in his wheelchair onto the balcony overlooking the square outside the hospital. Some 600 people had gathered at the hospital, including Rome’s Mayor Roberto Gualtieri. Hundreds of people also gathered in front of video screens in St. Peter’s Square to see the pope for the first time since he was hospitalized Feb. 14.
The pope left the hospital almost immediately after his appearance on the balcony.
The motorcycle police leading the pope’s motorcade turned onto the street leading to the Vatican entrance closest to his residence and then turned around. Rather than go directly home, Pope Francis was driven through the center of Rome to the Basilica of St. Mary Major where he has prayed before and after every foreign trip and after his two previous hospitalizations for abdominal surgery.
Pope Francis did not go into the church but left a bouquet of flowers to be placed on the altar under the Marian icon “Salus Populi Romani” or “Health of the Roman People.”
Television footage of the pope, seated in the front seat of a white Fiat, showed he was using oxygen through a nasal tube.
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, head of the medical team treating the pope, had told reporters March 22 that in his rooms at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the pope will continue using oxygen as needed through a nasal tube, will be taking medication to fight a lingering mycosis, a fungal infection, and will be continuing his physical therapy and respiratory therapy.
The doctors have prescribed two months of rest and recuperation and have urged the pope not to meet with large groups during that time. They also said his voice will require time to recover.
