For centuries, one of the biggest Vatican taboos has been to speak openly about the Pope’s health. As leader of the 1,400 million Catholics in the world, the Pope is a venerated spiritual figure. Talking about his earthly health was profane
But since February 14, when Pope Francis began a fight against double pneumonia at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, the Vatican has tried something new. The press office of the Holy See has been informing daily about its status.
It has provided details such as the use of high flow oxygen pope and its need for blood transfusions, and even described a “prolonged respiratory crisis similar to asthma” on February 22.
“I have been cautiously impressed,” said Greg Erlandson, an American journalist who has covered the Vatican for decades.
Together, the updates “reinforce the confidence that we are receiving a rather precise summary” of the state of the Pope, said Erlandson, former chief editor of the Catholic News Service.
John Thavis, a Vatican correspondent for three papados, said the new transparency “fits with Francisco’s open communication style, but moves away from the traditional Vatican reserve on the issue of papal health.”
Two of the doctors who treat Francisco in a press conference on February 21 that it was the Pope himself who ordered the daily updates.
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, from the Gemelli Hospital, said the instructions were writing updates “without hiding anything.”
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Aperture of little orthodoxa of the Pope
A person known for speaking frequently with Francisco, who asked not to be mentioned, said that the Pontiff himself had helped to write the updates in his early days in the hospital, and pressed his doctors to give more specific details about his condition and treatment .
Thavis said Francisco “wanted the seriousness of his state to be clear.”
Vatican officials have not publicly talked about the reasons for detailed updates, but in private, several officials have expressed concern about the propagation of erroneous information.
Shortly after the Pope was admitted to the hospital, social networks began to affirm that he had died or that he had been given the extremeunication. False images generated by artificial intelligence began to circulate in which he kept alive with the help of a respirator.
The daily medical updates of the Pope have repeatedly said that he is breathing for himself, but occasionally oxygen is supplied, as necessary, through a small tube under the nose.
“The Vatican has finally learned that it is better to be communicative than to let the conspiracy theorists fill the void,” said Tom Reese, a Jesuit priest and commentator who has closely covered the papacy.
Pope John Paul II, whose papacy lasted from 1978 to 2005, had visible tremors for years before the Vatican finally confirmed in 2003 that Parkinson’s disease suffered.
And stomach cancer that affected John XXIII for at least eight months did not reveal until long after his death in 1963.
“The old saying is that the Pope is never sick until he is dead,” said Christopher Bellitto, a historian from Kean University in New Jersey who studies the Catholic Church. “That has changed.”
With Reuters information.
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