Ailing pope 'rested well' but misses start of Lent

Pope Francis's condition was stable on Wednesday as he neared three weeks in hospital battling pneumonia, a Vatican source said, with celebrations for the Lent religious season starting without him.

The 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church has suffered a worrying series of respiratory attacks since his admission to the Gemelli in Rome on February 14, the most recent on Monday.

The pope "rested well overnight", the Vatican said Wednesday, while a Holy See source said later that, as on Tuesday evening, his condition remained "stable".

He wore an oxygen mask both Monday and Tuesday night because it helps him sleep better, the source said, while Wednesday he was receiving "high-flow" oxygen via a nasal cannula.

Francis had a calm day on Tuesday after Monday's two episodes of acute respiratory failure, with the Vatican reporting he had no fever, was "alert" and cooperating with his treatment.

But the Argentine's prognosis "remains reserved", meaning doctors will not say how they expect his condition to evolve.

The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics has not been seen since his hospitalisation, with audiences cancelled and Francis missing three successive Sunday Angelus prayers -- a first in his papacy.

He will miss celebrations Wednesday for the start of Lent, the 40 days preceding Easter -- the holiest period in the Christian calendar -- when Christians believe that Christ fasted in the desert.

The pope usually leads the main Ash Wednesday service, which start at 1600 GMT.

In his absence, the mass will be presided over by Italian Cardinal Angelo de Donatis after a procession on Rome's Aventine Hill.

Francis also missed Ash Wednesday celebrations in 2022, that time due to acute knee pain -- one of a series of health woes that have afflicted the pontiff since his election in 2013.

His health has regularly led to speculation, particularly among his critics, as to whether he could resign like his predecessor.

Worried Catholics around the world have been praying for the pope's recovery.

Praying for him

Francis, who had part of a lung removed as a young man, had been breathless and struggled to read his texts in the days leading up to his admission.

On February 22, he suffered a "prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis" and on February 28 had "an isolated crisis of bronchospasm" -- a tightening of the muscles that line the airways in the lungs.

On Monday, Francis "experienced two episodes of acute respiratory failure, caused by a significant accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm", according to the Vatican.

Acute respiratory failure, which can be life-threatening, occurs when the lungs cannot pass enough oxygen into the blood or when carbon dioxide builds up in the body.

Francis is in a special papal suite at the hospital with its own chapel. His medical team has not commented on the length of his stay, nor how long his recovery could take.

He has had very few visitors. Among them is Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, the Vatican's number three, who visited Sunday.

In an interview published Wednesday, Parra gave no details at all about how Francis was, just saying he was "carrying in his body signs of fragility and illness, like every human being".

In the meantime, the Vatican has been plunged into uncertainty, officials continuing their work while waiting anxiously for each medical bulletin.

On Tuesday, Catholics from Argentina gathered in front of Gemelli hospital and placed among the candles a blue and white "Our Lady of Lujan", a celebrated 16th-century statue of the Virgin Mary.

Francis used to pray to Our Lady of Lujan before becoming pope, when he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

"He knows that the whole Church is praying for him, and our prayer is a strength that he receives from the Holy Spirit," Fernando Laguna, a priest from the Argentine parish in Rome, told AFP.