He Pope FranciscoThe 86-year-old was admitted to a hospital in Rome on Wednesday for a “scheduled medical checkup,” the Vatican said in a brief statement, which raised questions about the Argentine pope’s actual health.

Meanwhile, the Italian newspaper I will run from it He assures that he was hospitalized due to heart problems. It is reported from the hospital that the pope, who arrived by ambulance after being ill, had heart and breathing problems late in the morning.

Reportedly, the pope began to feel pain in his chest immediately after the General Audience in St. Peter’s Square, when he was already at his residence in Casa Santa Marta. At the time, his personal nurse, Massimiliano Strapppetti, advised him as a precaution to go to the cardiology department for examination, according to the Italian media.

“The Holy Father is inside [el hospital] Gemelli this afternoon for previously scheduled checks,” said the director of the press office of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni.

Although these are routine checks, according to the spokespersons, the cancellation of the audience with Pope Francis on Thursday was announced shortly afterwards.

“The pope’s schedule has been suspended in case he needs to run more tests,” the source said, specifying that it was “possible” the pope would spend the night in hospital.

Francis, who celebrated 10 years of papacy in March, He took part in the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday morning, where he greeted the faithful from his “pope mobile” with a smile.

However, according to AFP photographers, he moved with difficulty and appeared to be in severe pain.

A child hugs Pope Francis as he departs in the Popemobile on March 29, 2023 at the end of the weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Photo: — VINCENZO PINTO

Francisco, who has been confined to a wheelchair since May 2022 due to arthritis in his right knee, spent 10 days in Gemelli Hospital in July 2021 for delicate colon surgery.

The pope later explained that this operation had left him with “aftermath”, so he decided to rule out knee surgery, as advised by his doctors.

The world was already aware of his various ailments due to the fact that he suffered from chronic sciatica that left him with a limp, forcing him to relinquish official ceremonies on some occasions.

The Gemelli Hospital is the medical center where Pope John Paul II was also hospitalized several times and even had a benign intestinal tumor removed in 1992.

guesses and secrets

The pope’s health, especially given Francis’s age and walking difficulties, often raises all sorts of suspicions.

In the various interviews given in recent months, the Latin American pope has raised the possibility of resigning, as did his predecessor in 2013, Benedict XVI, who died at the end of 2022.

Pope Francis has been admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital since Wednesday for a number of previously scheduled checkups, the Holy See’s press director said. Photo: — VINCENZO PINTO

Last July, Francisco confessed that he “could no longer travel” at the same pace as before and even said he could “step aside”.

But in February, he clarified that a pope’s resignation “should not become a fad” and that the idea was “not on his agenda at the moment”.

Francisco has had a “personal health assistant”, a nurse, who assists him permanently for a year.

The health of the popes has always been a “reserved matter” for the Vatican and is generally kept secret.

Argentine physician and journalist Nelson Castro recently presented a book in Rome on the health of the popes and discussed the illnesses they have suffered since Leo XIII, speaking in particular on the subject with Francisco.

He told Castro that he was “fully recovered” and had “never felt restricted since”.

He also confessed that while living in Argentina he was treated with Chinese acupuncture for back pain, that he suffered from “gallbladder stones” and that in 2004 he had a “temporary” heart condition due to a mild narrowing of an artery.