Pope Francis has at this point spent over a week in the hospital in Rome, battling pneumonia in both lungs, and in the last 24-hours there have been reports that his condition is stable and has seen slight improvement.
The 88-year old Pontiff entered the hospital on Feb. 14 with worsening bronchitis, leading doctors to eventually diagnose pneumonia, and reports in the initial days were dire.
Archbishop Giuseppe Satriano of Bari gave an update on Francis' condition Thursday, saying "He's a fighter, and I believe he'll win this battle."
Satriano described that he is awake, eating, and doing some work from his hospital bed, and that blood tests show slight improvements in his inflammation levels. The official Vatican assessment as of Thursday night is that Francis' condition is "slightly improving" that he's free of fever.
Still, the severity of the episode has led to speculation over possible resignation:
In a memoir, Life: My Story Through History, published last year, Francis wrote, “I think that the Petrine ministry is ‘ad vitam’ [‘for life’] and therefore I see no conditions for a resignation”, only to add in the next sentence, “things would change if a serious physical impediment were to arise”.
As the pontiff enters his eighth day in hospital on Friday, suffering from pneumonia in both lungs, Vatican watchers are wondering just how serious Francis, 88, thinks that physical impediment has to be.
On Thursday evening, the Vatican said that Francis’s condition was “slightly improving”, adding that his heart and circulation were in good shape and that he was free of fever and able to work.
However, in an interview on Italian radio, the senior Vatican cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi broached the topic on everyone’s mind and claimed: “I think he could [resign] because he is a person who, from this point of view, is quite decisive in his choices.”
This is the first time in his pontificate that the issue of resignation has been raised by a senior Cardinal. However, if he exits the hospital soon this is unlikely, as Pope's traditionally serve till death. It is extremely rare for a Pope to step down, with his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI having been one of the exceptions to the historic rule.
Newsweek commented, "The possibility of resignation resurfaced when Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi noted that if Francis' ability to engage directly with people was compromised, he might consider stepping down."
Conservative and traditional Roman Catholics have been critics of Francis' leadership, saying he represents a liberalizing trend in church life. Liberals have tended to hail him as being open to the world and a voice of 'progress'.