Pope continues recovery at hospital, meets with Vatican No. 2 over candidates for sainthood

Pope Francis continues treatment for pneumonia as Vatican launches nightly prayers, approves decrees for saints' canonization.

Pope Francis continued his treatment for pneumonia Tuesday (February 25, 2025) as the Vatican set in motion a nightly marathon of prayers from “his house” and allies cheered him on from afar in hopes that the 88-year-old would recover.

The Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: “The pope slept well, all night.”

Also read | Vatican announces daily evening prayers for Pope’s health on St. Peter’s Square

On Monday evening, doctors said he remained in critical condition with double pneumonia but reported a “slight improvement” in some laboratory results. In the most upbeat bulletin in days, the Vatican said Pope Francis had resumed work from his hospital room, calling a parish in Gaza City that he has kept in touch with since the war there began.

After night fell, thousands of faithful gathered in a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square for the first of a nightly ritual recitation of the Rosary. The prayer evoked the 2005 vigils when St. John Paul II was dying in the Apostolic Palace, but many of those on hand said they were praying for Francis’ recovery.

“We came to pray for the Pope, that he may recover soon, for the great mission he’s sharing with his message of peace,” said Hatzumi Villanueva, from Peru, who praised Francis' empathy for migrants.

Standing on the same stage where Pope Francis usually presides, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that ever since Pope Francis had been hospitalized, a chorus of prayers for his recovery had swelled up from around the world.