Pope Francis returned Sunday to his Vatican apartment after a five-week stay at a hospital for a double pneumonia. He was initially admitted to the hospital on Valentine’s Day for a respiratory infection, which rapidly worsened, requiring regular ventilation, multiple blood transfusions, and several procedures. Francis will now begin a two-month convalescence after enduring two nearly fatal critical episodes.
The pontiff appeared (watch here) for the first time in public since Feb. 14 on a balcony at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, whose 10th-floor suite has hosted ailing popes since the 1980s. Observers noted the 88-year-old appeared bloated and frail, and his speech sounded thin and gasping due to severe lung damage. Before his stay, Francis had maintained a relatively rigorous schedule of meetings, speeches, and travel—a routine analysts expect the Argentine will not revive soon.
The 38-day hospitalization was the longest of Francis’s 12-year papacy—he had been admitted three other times—and marks the second-longest of any recent pope behind John Paul II’s 1981 55-day stay.