Putting papal hospitalisations in context

As Pope Francis enters his 14th day at Gemelli Hospital, now the longest of his four stays at the polyclinic in Rome, some observers may be tempted to regard the long papal hospitalisation as exceptional.

But the current pontiff is still far off the length of hospitalisation experienced by Pope John Paul II, now St. John Paul II.

Indeed, as of this morning, Francis’s stay at Gemelli in terms of longevity ties for fifth place with the same number of days that John Paul II was hospitalised in 1992 for the removal of a benign intestinal tumour in July that year.

The Polish pope’s most famous spell at the sprawling Roman clinic, named for the early 20th-century Franciscan priest and physician Father Agostino Gemelli, came in May 1981, when he was rushed to the hospital following an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square. He underwent a delicate six-hour surgery to remove the bullets that had lodged in his body and to repair the damage they had caused.

He was released from the hospital and returned to the Vatican on 3 June 1981, marking a stay of 22 days.

A couple weeks later, however, it was discovered that John Paul II was running a severe fever and he was returned to the Gemelli for treatment. There he was diagnosed with cytomegalovirus, a common infection often compared to mononucleosis.

It was also decided, at the time, to perform a follow-up operation to the earlier surgery in order to close a temporary colostomy, or artificial outlet, created after an assassin’s bullet injured the lower intestines. Yet that operation couldn’t be performed until the fever from the infection was under control, which took weeks to accomplish.

In all, John Paul II was in the Gemelli on that second occasion in 1981 from June 20 to August 14, a total of 55 days in the hospital.

Other stays by John Paul II longer than the current hospitalisation of Francis – as of today – include a 28-day stay for an operation to repair a fracture to the right femur in 1994, and an 18-day recovery in the Gemelli from a respiratory crisis in February 2005.

He returned, following that 18-day stint, to the Vatican on March 13. Though he soo took another turn for the worse, and John Paul II would die on 2 April 2005, in the papal apartments of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

In all, Pope John Paul II made seven stays at the Gemelli over the course of his almost 27-year papacy, and that’s not counting an outpatient procedure in November 1993 to repair a dislocated shoulder.

All in, John Paul II spent a grand total of 155 days at the Gemelli over his term in office, representing more than five months of his papacy. The lengthy character of so many of his hospitalisations explains why John Paul dubbed the Gemelli the “Vatican III”, in addition to the actual Vatican centred on St. Peter’s Square and to the traditional papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.

Pope Benedict XVI was never hospitalised at the Gemelli, though he did travel to the facility once to visit his ailing brother Georg.

By way of comparison to John Paul II, Pope Francis has spent just 36 days at the Gemelli so far. Though the number is still counting.

Photo: The late Pope John Paul II in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital after the assassination attempt in 1981. (Credit: Vatican Media, via Crux.)

The post Putting papal hospitalisations in context first appeared on Catholic Herald.

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