The pope looms so large in on a regular basis Italian life that there are numerous expressions that make light of even a dark event like his death.
“A pope dies, they make one other,” goes one, suggesting how life goes on.
“Every death of a pope …” starts one other, indicating a rare occurrence.
However the one most ceaselessly heard when a pope is definitely sick is maybe the darkest: “The pope is effective until he’s dead.”
That one’s been making the rounds as Pope Francis nears every week in Rome’s Gemelli hospital, battling pneumonia and a fancy respiratory infection.
While the Vatican has been providing twice-daily updates on his condition and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said they “joked around as usual” during her visit Wednesday, every kind of reports — true and never — abound about Francis’ health.
They’ve taken on a lifetime of their very own in an age of discussion groups, conspiracy theories and web memes — not to say the perennial Roman fixation on the pope and who might succeed him.
The Conclave effect
It doesn’t help that the Oscar-nominated movie Conclave is in theaters and has made everyone an authority within the arcane rules and spectacular drama involved in a papal election.
Or that Francis recently prolonged the term of the dean of the College of Cardinals relatively than find someone latest to fill a key job in the course of the next papal transition.
Or that at 88, he’s one in every of the oldest popes ever.
Francis still has a ways to go to outlive Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903 at 93. But he’s on the right track to equal or surpass Pope Gregory XII, perhaps best known for being essentially the most recent pope to resign until Pope Benedict XVI did so in 2013.
Gregory was 88 when he stepped down in 1415 to finish the Western Schism, in keeping with online resource Catholic Hierarchy.
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Francis has ceaselessly said he, too, would consider resigning if his health made him unable to proceed, though more recently he said a pope’s job is for all times.
Candles with the photographs of Pope Francis are the laid under the statue of late Pope John Paul II outside Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, where the Pontiff is hospitalized since Friday, Feb. 14.
Gregorio Borgia/ The Associated Press
Vatican correspondents are frequently preparing for upcoming papal trips at the moment of yr, but none are confirmed up to now. As an alternative, between medical updates, they’re preparing stories looking back at his life, just in case.
“I feel the dictum of ‘A pope is effective until he’s dead’ is at all times true,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, former editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, who knows about how Vatican information is managed.
“It’s a really Roman way of speaking that represents, on the one hand, the normal skepticism of Romans and Italians, but alternatively, an informational opacity.”
The Vatican hasn’t allowed any member of Francis’ medical team to seem on camera or give detailed updates on his health, and no photos of him have been released since his Feb. 14 hospitalization.
A papal video fuels rumors
But to grasp how entwined the pope is in Italian life, one only needs to think about one other tradition religiously observed by Italians: the annual Sanremo song festival, a weeklong series on RAI television wherein viewers vote for his or her favorite rising vocalists who perform nightly within the kitschy, sometimes bawdy contest.
When it aired last week, it made much more headlines than usual because Francis — already sick with bronchitis but not yet within the hospital — appeared on opening night in a pre-taped video, a publicity coup for Sanremo and a primary for the papacy.
When popular Italian blog Dagospia subsequently claimed the video had been made nearly a yr earlier for one more event, near-hysteria broke out amongst Vatican watchers.
The apparent deception suggested that Francis’ latest illness was much worse than it seemed, and raised questions on the solidity of the papacy if an old video had been released without his knowledge.
Because it seems, Dagospia was improper. The video was legit, recent and recorded for Sanremo. Nevertheless it was true that Francis’ bronchitis was indeed much worse.
By week’s end, he was hospitalized with a lung infection that was pneumonia.
The episode though underscored the truism that the papacy is a matter of general public knowledge, interest and debate here, and that speculating concerning the pope’s current health and who could be next is a national pastime.
“I’m actually very, very frightened,” said Maurizio Di Folco, who was being treated Tuesday at the identical hospital. “I wish him a speedy recovery and we’re praying for him deeply. A excellent pope. An important pope!
“We hope he’ll be with us for a very long time to come back.”
Francis’ conservative critics weigh in
But elsewhere, Francis’ right-wing critics are circulating alarmist — and wholly uncorroborated — stories about his condition.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a Francis nemesis who was excommunicated for schism last yr, revived his conspiracy concerning the legitimacy of Francis’ 2013 election, calling for the CIA to analyze what he claims was a “Deep State” plot to elect him.
Francis knows this dynamic well.
“Some wanted me dead,” he told Slovakian Jesuit priests in 2021, referring to what he learned while he was hospitalized that yr for intestinal surgery.
“I do know there have been even meetings amongst priests who thought the pope was in worse shape than what was being said. They were preparing the conclave.”
It’s considered poor taste to debate publicly who’s up or down within the papal stakes of a future conclave, much less to start out plotting one. But privately, Rome is abuzz with such conversations. Taxi drivers chat about it with passengers, doctors with patients, butchers with customers.
For now, Francis is holding on.
Thursday’s bulletin said his overall clinical condition was “improving barely” and that his heart was working well. He had breakfast sitting up in an armchair and was working with aides.
“There’s a greater measure of transparency, but even that will not be complete,” said Christopher Bellitto, a church history professor at Kean University in Latest Jersey.
“Surely everyone with aging parents and grandparents said, ‘that’s pneumonia’ before the Vatican did.”
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