ROME (AP) — Pope Francis went to the hospital Tuesday for tests and returned back to the Vatican, witnesses and news reports said, two months after he was hospitalized with an acute case of bronchitis.
The ANSA news agency said Francis went to Rome's Gemelli hospital Tuesday morning for tests. Witnesses at the Vatican's Perugino gate, one of the main entrances to the city state, told The Associated Press Francis returned to the Vatican a short while later, and greeted guards as he usually does.
Francis, 86, spent three days at Rome’s Gemelli hospital in late March. Initially the Vatican said he had gone in for scheduled tests, but the pontiff later revealed he had felt pain in his chest and was rushed to the hospital where bronchitis was diagnosed. He was put on intravenous antibiotics and was released April 1, quipping that he was “still alive.”
The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed when he was a young man. He also suffers from sciatica nerve pain and has been using a wheelchair and walker for over a year because of strained ligaments in his knee.
Francis has had a packed schedule of late, with multiple audiences each day. The Vatican has recently confirmed a travel-filled August, when the Holy See and Italy are usually on vacation, with a four-day visit to Portugal the first week of August and a similarly long trip to Mongolia starting Aug. 31.
His next public appointment, if confirmed, would be his weekly general audience on Wednesday in St. Peter's Square.
