Pope’s breathing difficulties persist for 6th day

For at least the past six days, Pope Francis has been suffering from a case of bronchitis, preventing him from reading his speeches normally and forcing him to receive his guests at his residence rather than at the Apostolic Palace. Despite this latest episode of respiratory ailment - which tend to plague him in winter - the 88-year-old Pontiff is continuing his audiences normally for the time being, as he did on the morning of this February 10, 2025, during which he kept six official appointments on his agenda.

“I'd like to apologize, because with this bad cold, it's difficult for me to speak,” confided Francis at the general audience on February 5, before delegating the reading of his catechesis to a collaborator.

The following day, the Holy See Press Office reported that the Pope had contracted bronchitis, forcing him to continue his activities from his residence.

Since then, his appointments have continued as normal at Casa Santa Marta, with no cancellations, in contrast to previous episodes of winter respiratory ailments which forced him to lighten his schedule.

In March 2023, Pope Francis was hospitalized with infectious bronchitis. “'We caught it in time,' they told me, and if we had waited a few more hours, it would have been more serious,” he recounted a few weeks later on Mexican television.

Follow updates on the Pope's health here.

On Sunday, February 9, the Pope went out into the cold to celebrate Mass for the Armed Forces Jubilee in St. Peter's Square. However, some observers thought he looked very tired and, with a weakened voice, apologized to the crowd for not being able to continue reading his homily due to “breathing difficulties.”

The Pope's entourage noted his “tired” face and his weight gain, which some explained as the result of corticosteroid treatments - although officially there is no information on this subject, as the Pope is reluctant to publish bulletins about his personal health issues.

The Holy Father's respiratory situation is particularly delicate since in 1957, when he was in his early 20s, he had a severe respiratory infection that led to the removal of part of one lung. He would later say that a nurse saved his life on that occasion.

In addition to his vulnerability to respiratory infections, the Pope has suffered two falls in recent weeks.

“He's not in good shape,” worries a Vatican source, considering that his stationary state over the last few days is not reassuring.

“The Pope was very tired,” agrees Chems-eddine Hafiz, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, whom the Argentine pontiff received on Monday morning. “He was supposed to receive us in his private library, but he received us [at Santa Marta] and apologized. I was a little worried about him,” he told I.MEDIA.

“You could see from his face that he was suffering, he was short of breath, it was quite difficult,” adds the Franco-Algerian lawyer, who acknowledges that the head of the Catholic Church carries heavy burdens on his shoulders for his advanced age.

During the roughly half-hour audience, however, adds the Muslim rector, Pope Francis was “very affable, very smiling, very friendly” and also “very attentive.”

“He's extremely agile intellectually,” says Chems-eddine Hafiz. Before slipping in: “At the end, given his state of health, he took my hands and asked me to pray for him.”

On February 8, a Spanish delegation from the Congress of Confraternities in Seville found the Pope very available, and willing to talk during a 45-minute audience, instead of the scheduled 20 minutes, a well-informed source told I.MEDIA.

“As long as he doesn't cancel an audience, there's nothing to worry about. Obviously, he's 88 years old; anything can happen ...” the source added.

On Wednesday as usual, the Pontiff is due to preside over the general audience in Paul VI Hall. And next Monday, he is due to leave the Vatican to visit the Cinecittà film studios in southeast Rome, on the occasion of the Jubilee of Artists.

Whatever the case, the 266th Pope has already confided that he has no intention of giving up as long as he is in control of his intellectual faculties. “You govern with your head, not your knee,” he asserted in an interview with ABCtelevision in December 2022.