Rome: Pope Francis remained in critical condition Sunday and blood tests show early kidney failure but he remains alert and ‘well-oriented,’ and attended Mass, the Vatican said, as the 88-year-old pontiff battles pneumonia and a complex lung infection.
In a late update, the Vatican said Francis hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday night but was still receiving high flows of supplemental oxygen.
Some blood tests showed ‘initial, mild, kidney failure,’ but doctors said it was under control. The decreased platelet count, necessary for clotting, that was first detected Saturday was stable. “The complexity of the clinical picture, and the necessary wait for drug therapies to provide some feedback, dictate that the prognosis remains reserved,” the doctors concluded. Prayers for him poured in from around the world, from his native Argentina to the seat of Sunni Islam in Cairo to schoolchildren in Rome.
In New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan admitted what church leaders in Rome weren’t saying publicly: that the Catholic faithful were united “at the bedside of a dying father.” “As our Holy Father Pope Francis is in very, very fragile health, and probably close to death,” Dolan said at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, without saying if he had independent information about the pope’s condition.