Pope Francis has been well enough while in hospital to meet the Vatican secretary of state to approve new decrees for saints and call a formal meeting to set the dates for their canonisation, the Vatican says.
The audience, which occurred Monday, signalled the machinery of the Vatican grinds on and is looking ahead even with Francis in critical condition with double pneumonia and doctors warning his prognosis is guarded.
The Vatican's Tuesday noon bulletin announced that Francis had approved decrees for five people for beatification and two for canonisation.
During the audience with Vatican No.2 Cardinal Pietro Parolin and his deputy, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, Francis had “decided to convene a consistory about the future canonisations”, the statement said.
Francis regularly approves decrees from the Vatican's saint-making office, but the forward-looking sense of the future consistory is significant, given his illness.
On Tuesday morning, the Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: “The Pope slept well, the whole night.”
On Monday evening, doctors said he remained in critical condition with double pneumonia but reported a “slight improvement” in some laboratory results.
In the most upbeat bulletin in days, the Vatican said Francis had resumed work from his hospital room, calling a parish in Gaza City that he has kept in touch with since the war there began.
After night fell, thousands of faithful gathered in a rain-soaked St Peter’s Square for the first of a nightly ritual recitation of the rosary.
The prayer evoked the 2005 vigils when St John Paul II was dying in the Apostolic Palace, but many of those on hand said they were praying for Francis’ recovery.
Standing on the same stage where Francis usually presides, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that ever since Francis had been hospitalised, a chorus of prayers for his recovery had swelled up from around the world.
“Starting this evening, we want to unite ourselves publicly to this prayer here, in his house,” Parolin said, praying that Francis “in this moment of illness and trial” would recover quickly.
The vigil was to continue on Tuesday night, presided over by another senior Vatican official, Cardinal Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, who heads the office responsible for the Catholic Church in the developing world.
The Argentine pontiff, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been hospitalised since February 14 at Rome's Gemelli hospital, and doctors have said his condition is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and pre-existing lung disease before the pneumonia set in.
But in Monday’s update, they said he had not had any more respiratory crises since Saturday, and the flow and concentration of supplemental oxygen has been slightly reduced.
The slight kidney insufficiency detected on Sunday was not causing alarm at the moment, doctors said, while saying his prognosis remained guarded.
Francis’ right-wing critics have been spreading dire rumours about his condition, but his allies have cheered him on and expressed hope that he will pull through.
At Gemelli on a rainy on Tuesday morning, ordinary Romans and visitors alike were also praying for the Pope and reflecting on the teachings he has imparted over nearly 12 years.
Hoang Phuc Nguyen, who lives in Canada but was visiting Rome to take part in a Holy Year pilgrimage, went to Gemelli to say a special prayer for the Pope at the statue of St John Paul II outside the main entrance.
"He is our father and it is our responsibility to pray for him,” Nguyen said.
