Editor’s Note: In this article about recovering from pneumonia, in hospital, it states that weak patients may have to remain in hospital for weeks; that their lungs will start producing less mucus at about 6 weeks and may continue for several weeks more. And that they won’t regain full strength for as much as 6 months afterwards. Pope Francis has been in hospital for 3 weeks. Healthy individuals normally only stay in hospital for pneumonia for 2-3 days or as much as 2 weeks, as they take an antibiotic regimen to clear the infection. Clearly Pope Francis is not among this class of pneumonia patients. So if he is still alive and does not die from something else, we can expect him to remain in hospital quite longer.

No Photo Still? Why?

As for the Vatican refusing to share photographs of Pope Francis, this may be on account of the custom of the Vatican of never showing photographs of a pope on his death bed, that is, because Vatican insiders know that he is not going to survive this medical crisis.

Another reason might be because the creditors of the Vatican have already demanded their monies back and the Vatican is in fact now bankrupt: thus by hiding in hospital, Pope Francis may be trying to stave off the creditors of the Vatican Bank, who out of human respect won’t want to negotiate the repayment of the debt, while the Pope is in his sick bed. This might explain why the Vatican won’t release photographs, since they cannot produce a photo which would convince the creditors not to make demands as soon as possible. This would also explain why Cardinal Parolin and his undersecretary are the only ones allowed to visit him, since it would be they who had the responsibility to stave off the creditors.