Holy Father, what was the problem? “Ask the doctors, I don’t understand much.” Pope Francis responded with these words to the journalists stationed at the Perugino gate, through which he passed to return to the Vatican after his departure from the Gemelli Polyclinic where he spent a few days hospitalized for bronchitis, treated with antibiotics. The Holy Father handed out Easter eggs to the guarding soldiers and policemen and then also confirmed that he will go to Hungary.
Mass in Coena Domini in Casal del Marmo
The press office of the Holy See has announced that the Pope will preside over the various liturgies of Holy Week that will begin tomorrow with Palm Sunday. There will be a cardinal at the altar and the Pontiff will deliver homilies, as planned even before hospitalization. Francis will celebrate Mass in Coena Domini on Holy Thursday in the Roman juvenile prison of Casal del Marmo. As usual it will be a private celebration. However, it is not yet known who wrote the meditations and who will carry the Cross on the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday in the Colosseum.
The pain of Angelica’s parents
The Pope left the Gemelli this morning shortly after 10:30 a.m., after three days of hospitalization. As he left, he hugged Serena Subania, mother of little Angelica, barely 4 years old, who died last night. Francesco tried to comfort her pain and that of the child’s father, Mattia Rugghia. Who tearfully told the Pope that “you met her because in 2019 you came to Casal Bertone and held her in your arms.” They prayed together and then the Pope blessed them.
The Pope’s joke: “I’m still alive”
CNN colleague Delia Gallagher asked the Pope how he was doing and the Pope responded with a quip: “Still alive!” and he confirmed that he felt bad on Wednesday morning: “But I wasn’t afraid,” she continued. Then he praised the staff who work in the hospital: “Being a doctor, helping the staff, for cleaning, heroism and great tenderness with the sick are needed in the hospital. You know, the sick are capricious, everyone! The whim is something that comes from the disease. You have to be patient… I really admire the people who work in the hospital, yesterday I went to see the children and saw how tenderly they were cared for.”
The story of the child baptized by the Pope
And regarding the child the Pope baptized yesterday, the Rome Police Headquarters issued a statement telling the story of Michelangelo’s happy ending.
“On the afternoon of March 30, two policewomen from the General Office for Prevention and Public Assistance of the Rome Police Headquarters, while passing the service car in via Palmiro Togliatti, heard a horn repeatedly heard. Moments later they were hit by a car, aboard which was a crying woman in a state of great agitation, with an unconscious baby in her arms, who was heading to the emergency room with her husband. She told them that her son Miguel Ángel, just 6 days old, had fallen out of the car seat by accident shortly before, hitting his head and losing consciousness. Immediately realizing the seriousness of the child’s condition, the police immediately activated a relay service that allowed the mother to reach the Emergency Department of the Umberto I Polyclinic but due to the child’s condition there was a subsequent transfer to the Gemelli Polyclinic.” Michelangelo’s condition rapidly improved.
Thanksgiving to Our Lady
Before returning to the Vatican, the Pope greeted the rector of the Catholic University, Franco Anelli, and his closest collaborators; general manager Marco Elefanti; the ecclesiastical assistant of the University, Msgr. Claudio Giuliodori, and the staff of doctors and nurses who assisted him these days. Then he wanted to go to S. Maria Maggiore to pay homage to the Salus Populi Romani: to Our Lady he entrusted the children of the department of pediatric oncology and pediatric neurosurgery that he had visited yesterday, the sick and those suffering the loss of a loved one, like Angelica’s parents.
