Pope continues recovery, sleeps well as Vatican launches marathon prayers and allies cheer him on

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis continued his recovery from pneumonia Tuesday as the Vatican set in motion a nightly marathon of prayers from "his house" and allies cheered him on from afar in hopes that he might recover and get back to leading the Catholic Church.

The Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: “The pope slept well, all night.”

On Monday evening, doctors said he remained in critical condition with double pneumonia but reported a “slight improvement” in some laboratory results. In the most upbeat bulletin in days, they said he had resumed work from his hospital room, calling a parish in Gaza City that he has kept in touch with since the war there began.

After night fell, thousands of faithful gathered in a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square for the first of a nightly recitation of the Rosary. The prayer evoked the 2005 vigils when St. John Paul II was dying in the Apostolic Palace, but many of those on hand said they were praying for Francis’ recovery.

“We came to pray for the pope, that he may recover soon, for the great mission he’s sharing with his message of peace,” said Hatzumi Villanueva, from Peru, who praised Francis' empathy for migrants.

Standing on the same stage where Francis usually presides, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that ever since Francis had been hospitalized, a chorus of prayers for his recovery had swelled up from around the world.

“Starting this evening, we want to unite ourselves publicly to this prayer here, in his house,” Parolin said, praying that Francis “in this moment of illness and trial” would recover quickly.

The Argentine pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been hospitalized since Feb. 14 and doctors have said his condition is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and pre-existing lung disease.

But in Monday’s update, they said he hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday, and the flow and concentration of supplemental oxygen has been slightly reduced. The slight kidney insufficiency detected on Sunday was not causing alarm at the moment, doctors said, while saying his prognosis remained guarded.

Francis’ right-wing critics have been spreading dire rumors about his condition, but his allies have cheered him on and expressed hope that he will pull through. Many noted that from the very night of his election as pope, Francis had asked for the prayers of ordinary faithful, a request he repeats daily.

“I’m a witness of everything he did for the church, with a great love of Jesus,” Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga told La Repubblica. “Humanly speaking, I don’t think it’s time for him to go to Paradise.”

Maradiaga, a founding member of Francis’ inner circle of cardinal advisers, said he himself had been near death with COVID-19, on high flows of oxygen like Francis. “I know the pope may be suffering and as a result I feel closer to him in prayer.”

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