ROME (AP) – Pope Francis, “wisely” following doctors’ advice, will skip Sunday’s usual public blessing to allow himself better healing after abdominal surgery earlier this week, his surgeon told reporters.
Blood and imaging tests suggest the 86-year-old Pope’s recovery is “completely normal,” Sergio Alfieri, who operated on the Pope, also told reporters at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic on Saturday.
During Wednesday’s three-hour operation, doctors under general anesthesia removed increasingly painful scars from previous abdominal surgeries and repaired a hernia in the abdominal wall using a prosthetic mesh.
Alfieri said that while Francis’ recovery was medically uneventful, any additional physical exertion, such as getting out of bed, sitting in a chair and videotaping the traditional Sunday midday blessing to the public and commenting on it could be done time to be risky.
While the Vatican said earlier in the week that Francis occasionally sat in a chair to read newspapers, the weekly lunchtime appointment typically consists of the pope addressing the public for about 15 minutes and giving his blessing.
The advice of his doctors and the Pope’s Vatican nurse to avoid Sunday performances is aimed at “putting as little stress on the abdominal wall as possible so that the implanted mesh and the repaired muscle fascia can heal optimally,” said Alfieri.
“If he doesn’t pay attention to the healing in the next few days, the mesh could tear and he will be back in the operating room,” said the surgeon.
“If he recovers carefully, he will be better off than he was at the Vatican,” Alfieri said. “There is caution, which we suggested and which he wisely accepted.”
According to his medical staff, Francis switched from a liquid to a semi-liquid diet and did not have a fever.
His heart and respiratory condition are also fine, Alfieri said in his first medical briefing on the pope’s condition since the one he gave on Wednesday, shortly after the pope regained consciousness from anesthesia.
“For his age of 86, he has no pathologies” related to his heart or respiratory system, Alfieri replied to a reporter’s question.
Francis will pray the traditional Sunday midday prayer privately in his sickroom, and the faithful are encouraged to join in the prayer, Bruni said.
In private prayer, Francis will “unite spiritually, with affection and gratitude, with the faithful who wish to accompany him wherever they are,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a separate written statement.
Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square to promote the value of brotherhood – a quality so dear to Francis that he authored an encyclical on its importance in 2020.
However, since Francis was unable to speak to them, a cardinal read the pope’s speech acknowledging his absence.
“Even if I cannot greet you personally, I would like to extend a warm welcome to you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming,” the prepared speech began. The audience heard a reminder from Francis that there is “the possibility of being brothers and sisters even if we are not close, as happened to me”.
Francis is recovering in the papal apartment on the 10th floor of the Gemelli Polyclinic.
No date has yet been announced for his discharge from the hospital.
“We hope that we can convince him to stay for at least the whole of next week,” said Alfieri on Saturday.
Alfieri said that by choosing to spend more time in the hospital convalescing rather than leaving after a few days, the Pope could “return to his work with more vigor and security.”
Alfieri recalled his remarks hours after the operation that Francis had no complications either during the operation or from the general anesthesia.
During the operation, the surgical team removed adhesions, a type of internal scarring not uncommon in previous surgeries. Two years earlier, Francis had part of his colon removed after a section of his intestine was narrowed. The repaired hernia had formed over a previous scar.
Alfieri had also performed the bowel surgery in 2021. When he operated this time, “I found the same scars as two years ago,” the surgeon said Saturday. “Then they didn’t cause any symptoms.” But since then, the adhesions have caused increasing pain.
After the operation, Francis was “not in much pain,” Alfieri said, adding that the pope was taking “light” painkillers “so he can breathe well.”
Francis has two foreign trips planned for August, the first to Portugal for a Catholic youth gathering and then, later this month, to Mongolia, the first-ever pilgrimage by a pontiff to that Asian country.
When asked about the prospects for those arduous trips given his operation, Alfieri said the pope “made those calculations” when deciding to go ahead with the operation on June 7, an indication that Francis felt he the schedule for the operation could meet his travel plans.