March 24 \u2013 Pope Francis has appeared at his window of the Gemelli hospital in Rome and offered a blessing for the first time since being admitted on 14 February.<\/p>\n
The 88-year-old pontiff was discharged minutes later and doctors say he will need at least two months of rest at the Vatican.<\/p>\n
During the past five weeks, he presented \u201ctwo very critical episodes\u201d where his \u201clife was in danger\u201d, Dr Sergio Alfieri, one of the doctors treating the Pope, said.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis was never intubated and always remained alert and oriented, Dr Alfieri said. Even though the Pope is not completely healed, he no longer has pneumonia and will return to work as soon as possible, if the trend continues, doctors say.<\/p>\n
Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri told the BBC he felt \u201ca really great joy, great emotion to see Pope Francis leaving the hospital\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great gift to the city and to the world\u2026 we support him and feel really close to him,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n
Crowds gathered outside the Gemelli hospital in Rome to see the Pope<\/p>\n
A crowd of people gathered outside the hospital on Sunday, waiting for the Pope to appear.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw him I felt, to be honest, a little relieved,\u201d said Bishop Larry Kulick, from the Diocese of Greensburg in the US state of Pennsylvania. \u201cI felt just overjoyed to see him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI cried all the time because the love we breathe in this little square of this hospital was like heaven,\u201d said Ilaria Della Bidia, a singer from Rome.<\/p>\n
Ana Matos from Brazil said she \u201cjust arrived from Brazil today\u201d and arrived outside the hospital \u201c30 seconds before he appeared\u201d. She said that \u201cit was an amazing feeling, like when I had my son. I was so happy to see him healthy and I could see him smile\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Pope had only previously been seen by the public once since he was admitted to hospital, in a photograph released by the Vatican last week, which showed him praying in a hospital chapel.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, an audio recording of Pope Francis was played in St Peter\u2019s Square in Vatican City.<\/p>\n
His voice was breathless as he thanked the Catholic faithful for their prayers.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis has spent 12 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
He has suffered a number of health issues throughout his life, including having part of one of his lungs removed at age 21, making him more prone to infections.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March 24 \u2013 Pope Francis has appeared at his window of the Gemelli hospital in Rome and offered a blessing for the first time since being admitted on 14 February. The 88-year-old pontiff was discharged minutes later and doctors say he will need at least two months of rest at the Vatican. During the past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}