The Vatican’s Day-to-Day Operation for Anti-Abortion During the Sunday Mass Mass for a Movement for Life

The capital city of Italy. Pope Francis is responding well to the treatment for double pneumonia and has shown a “gradual, slight improvement” in recent days, the Vatican said Saturday. But his doctors have decided to keep his prognosis as guarded, meaning that he’s not out of danger yet.

Francis worked and rested during the day on Saturday, as he entered his fourth week at Rome’s Gemelli hospital with his condition stabilized following a few bouts of acute respiratory crises last week.

“In order to record these initial improvements in the coming days as well, his doctors have prudently maintained the prognosis as guarded,” the statement said.

In his absence, the Vatican’s day-to-day operations continued, with Cardinal Pietro Parolin celebrating Mass for an anti-abortion group in St. Peter’s Basilica. At the start, Parolin delivered a message from the pope from the hospital on the need to protect life, from birth to natural death.

Francis encourages the faithful to promote anti-abortion activities for both unborn and elderly people in his message addressed to the Movement for Life.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, a close ally of Francis, is in charge of the nightly prayers for him. Czerny then returns on Sunday to celebrate the Holy Year Mass for volunteers that Francis was supposed to have celebrated.

Francis said in his prayer that he experiences the thoughtfulness of service and the care of the doctors and health care workers, whom he thanked from the bottom of his heart.

The pope also offered a prayer for people living in countries experiencing armed conflicts, and thanked those who volunteer in their local communities, as the Jubilee for the World of Volunteering event was taking place in Rome over the weekend.

“In our societies, too enslaved to market logic, where everything risks being subject to the criterion of interest and the quest for profit,” Francis said, “volunteering is prophecy and a sign of hope, because it bears witness to the primacy of gratuitousness, solidarity, and service to those most in need.”

Inspiral and death of Francis Francis in his 88-year-old hometown, Saratoga Springs, Florida, in the mid-1920s

The 88-year-old entered the hospital on Feb. 14 for a case of bronchitis. Francis had a lung removed in his twenties and was hospitalized for a case of bronchitis in 2023.