Today, March 13, marks the 12th anniversary of the election of Pope Francis as the 265th successor of St. Peter. As he enters the 13th year of his ministry as bishop of Rome, Francis is not in the Vatican; he is instead a patient in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been treated for double pneumonia for the past 28 days and is now out of imminent danger and recovering.
Gemelli Hospital has become a second Vatican, a Vatican 2, one might say, because Francis continues to govern the church from there. He receives top Vatican officials, reads briefs, approves decrees to declare new saints and blesseds, nominates bishops for dioceses worldwide, responds to Jubilee events and expresses concern for the world’s conflict situations, including in Israel-Palestine, Ukraine, Lebanon, Sudan and Myanmar and for the flood victims in his homeland.
This evening, March 13, we learned that Francis celebrated his 12 years as pope with a cake and candles with his medical personnel at the hospital, at their suggestion. During the day, he continued with his medical and respiratory therapies and his motor physiotherapy, and received high-flow oxygen through nasal tubes. As he has done since last Sunday, he followed the Spiritual Exercises for the Roman Curia personnel by video-link.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the 76-year-old Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires when 115 cardinals from 47 countries gathered in conclave voted to elect him pope on Wednesday afternoon, March 13, 2013. His surprise election caused a seismic shift in the Catholic Church with its 1.3 billion members and transferred the church’s leadership for the first time in history from Europe to Latin America, where nearly 40 percent of the world’s Catholics live.
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Gerard O’Connell is America’s Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.
With thanks to the America Magazine, Gerard O’Connell, where this article originally appeared.
