Pope Francis plans to make his first appearance in more than five weeks on Sunday, offering a blessing from the window of his room at the Gemelli hospital in Rome while fighting double pneumonia, said the Vatican.
Francis, 88, entered the hospital on February 14 with a severe respiratory infection that has required an evolving treatment.
The public has only been seen by the public once during their stay at the hospital, in a photo that the Vatican released last week, showing the pontiff in prayer in a hospital chapel.
Francis wants to come to the hospital window around noon on Sunday to give greeting and blessing, said the Vatican in a brief statement on Saturday.
The Pope generally offers a weekly sentence of noon in the Plaza de San Pedro on Sundays. Francis has not been able to do this since February 9, before going to the hospital.
The Vatican said that Francis was not expected to deliver the prayer this Sunday, in a sign that the Pope is still recovering from pneumonia, but would come to the window for greeting.
Francis is prone to pulmonary infections because he had pleurisy when he was young adult and took part in a lung.
His hospitalization has been the most serious health crisis of his 12 -year -old papacy, and the longest he has been out of public opinion since his election as a pontiff in 2013.
The last Vatican newsletters on the medical condition of the Pope have been cautiously optimistic. On Friday, the Vatican said that Francis had been reducing his use of high flow oxygen to help him breathe.
However, a Senior Cardinal said Friday that he could take time for the Pope to “learn again” after using oxygen during his hospital stay.
“The Pope is very good, but the oxygen of high flow dry everything,” said Cardinal Victor Fernández, the Vatican doctrine official. “You need to learn how to talk, but your general physical condition is as it was before.”
The Vatican has not given a deadline for the hospital of the hospital, but the plans for a meeting with King Charles of Great Britain on April 8 have increased the possibility that Francis can return to his Vatican residence by then.
