Pope Francis looked visibly drained when he drove around St Peter’s Square in his popemobile on Easter Sunday, cheered by a rapt crowd in what became his final public appearance.
Aged 88 and weakened by five weeks battling double pneumonia in hospital, some in the Vatican suspect the head of the Catholic Church knew that his strength was abandoning him.
Among Catholics gathered outside the Vatican on Monday to pray after the death of Francis was announced, many saw his Easter appearance as a sign that the ailing pope was improving.
Although doctors had advised a two-month convalescence, the Argentine pontiff had gradually resumed his activities in the month since he left hospital. The Easter Sunday appearance was the latest of several over the past two weeks.
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“We have the impression he wanted to go all the way” by having contact with the crowd, “he was the pope of the people,” a Vatican source told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
“He did not die in the hospital cut off from the rest of the world, he had time to come back, give his blessing, experience Easter. We are all impressed.”
Upon his release from Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, who is known for his stubbornness, wasted no time in returning to work.
On April 6, barely two weeks after his discharge, Francis made his first public appearance at the Vatican, following a mass dedicated to the sick in St Peter’s Square, to the surprise of the congregation.
“Happy Sunday everyone. Thank you very much,” he whispered in a weak voice, still wearing a nasal cannula for oxygen.
The impromptu public appearances continued. On April 10, he entered St Peter’s Basilica to inspect recent renovations. Seated in a wheelchair, the dark trousers he wore and a poncho placed over his chest made him seem more like a retirement home resident than a pope.
The day before, he had a brief private audience with Britain’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and on April 12, he left the Vatican to pray at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, in the centre of Rome, where he will be buried.
The Vatican continued to provide occasional updates on the pope’s health. It said Francis was slowly getting better, with his breathing and motor skills improving.
At his Santa Marta residence inside the Vatican, Francis attended mass every morning on the second floor and worked in his office.
Surrounded day and night by a medical team, he signed documents, wrote letters and prayed.
To mark the start of the Easter Holy Week, he appeared on April 13 for Palm Sunday mass, where, from his wheelchair pushed around St Peter’s Square, he shook hands and offered sweets to children.
Although he was forced to delegate the main celebrations for the week to cardinals, the pope headed to a dilapidated and overcrowded Rome prison on Thursday to greet about 70 inmates.
Asked upon his departure how he was getting through the Easter week, Francis replied: “As best I can.”
Considered reckless in the eyes of some, the pope’s outings did not surprise those familiar with the headstrong temperament of the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, who always championed the poor, the marginalised, the sick and the elderly.
The Vatican source said he had understood why the pope “was taking all these risks”.
“He knew that he did not have long left and therefore that he had to do important things.”
Was it one too many? On Sunday, when he appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica for his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and the World”) blessing, he appeared exhausted.
“Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter,” he said in a weak voice before delegating the reading of his text.
Out of breath, he then gave the traditional blessing in Latin.
They were his last public words.
But the pope had one more surprise at hand.
Seated in his white popemobile, he circled the plaza to the cries of “Pope Francis”, weakly raising his hand to wave, but occasionally stopping to bless babies thrust into his path.
