Sawt Falasteen - Pope marks three weeks in hospital with breathless audio message

The message broadcast to pilgrims in St Peter's Square on Thursday evening was the first time the world had heard the pope's voice since he was admitted to Rome's Gemelli hospital on February 14.

The Argentine pontiff has suffered several respiratory crises since his admission, most recently on Monday.

Amid increasingly lurid online speculation, fuelled by the absence of any photos of the pope, the Holy See on Thursday released a short audio message recorded that day by Francis.

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers for my health from the Square. I accompany you from here," the pope said, sounding weak and taking laboured breaths.

"May God bless you and the Virgin protect you. Thank you."

The Argentine spoke in his native Spanish, drawing speculation he could not muster the strength to speak in Italian, which is used for official Vatican business.

But a Vatican source insisted Francis wanted to speak in a language that would have a wider audience.

The source confirmed the pope's status Friday was "stable in a complex picture".

He continues to switch between an oxygen mask at night and a cannula -- a plastic tube tucking into the nostrils -- delivering high-flow oxygen during the day, and is doing physiotherapy.

- 'Good sign' -

When the message was broadcast in the square in front of St Peter's Basilica, where prayers have been held every evening for the pope, applause broke out among the hundreds of pilgrims gathered there.

"We were very happy that he could speak," said John Maloney, a 76-year-old English pilgrim visiting Rome for the 2025 Jubilee holy year celebrations.

"It's a good sign that he's actually able to speak," he told AFP, adding: "He's got a long way to go so he's in the hands of God."

But for Claudia Bianchi, a 50-year-old Italian from Rome, "it struck me to hear him so tired".

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said it was Francis himself who wanted the message broadcast.

The pope's message was on the front page of many Italian newspapers, which reported it was an attempt by the Vatican to battle disinformation about the pontiff's deterioration or even death.

They noted the weakness of his voice, with the Corriere della Sera daily describing it as "pained".

- Change in communication -

In a bid for greater transparency, the Vatican has been publishing an update on how the pope slept every morning, followed by a more detailed medical bulletin each evening.

It said Thursday that "in view of the stability of the clinical picture", there would be no medical bulletin on Friday evening, with the next due on Saturday.

Nonetheless, "the doctors are still maintaining a reserved prognosis", it said, meaning they will not say how they expect his condition to evolve.

On Friday morning, the Vatican provided the usual brief update, saying Francis "passed a calm night and woke up shortly after 8:00am (0700 GMT)".

During previous hospitalisations, the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics appeared on the Gemelli balcony for his weekly Sunday Angelus prayer.

But he has missed the last three, and no announcement has yet been made about whether he will make an appearance this weekend.

The pope has suffered a series of health issues in recent years, from colon surgery in 2021 to a hernia operation in 2023, but this is the longest and most serious hospitalisation of his papacy.

On February 22, he suffered a "prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis" and on February 28 had "an isolated crisis of bronchospasm" -- a tightening of the muscles that line the airways in the lungs.

On Monday March 3, Francis "experienced two episodes of acute respiratory failure, caused by a significant accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm", the Vatican said.

Francis's health has regularly led to speculation, particularly among his critics, as to whether he could resign like his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

M.AbuKhalil--SF-PST