Why did Pope Francis meet with the Vatican's number 2?

Pope Francis was well enough to meet with the Vatican's secretary of state to approve new sainthood decrees and make some important governance decisions that suggest he is doing essential work and looking ahead, despite being hospitalized in critical condition with pneumonia in both lungs.

The hearing, which took place on Monday, indicated that the Vatican machinery is still humming, although doctors have warned that the prognosis for Pope Francis, 88, is guarded .

The Vatican’s Tuesday midday bulletin contained a number of significant decisions, the most important of which was that Francis met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra , the Vatican’s “substitute,” or chief of staff. It is the first time the pope is known to have met with Parolin, who is basically the Vatican’s first minister, since Francis’ hospitalization on Feb. 14.

During the audience, Francis approved decrees for two new saints and five people for beatification , the first step toward sainthood. Francis also decided to “call a consistory on future canonizations.”

The pope normally approves decrees from the canonization office when he is in the Vatican, though in audiences with the head of that office, not Parolin. But the convening of a consistory, which is a formal meeting of cardinals , was also significant and forward-looking, given his illness.

No date was set for the meeting. But it was also at a banal consistory to set dates for canonizations on Feb. 11, 2013, that Pope Benedict XVI announced, in Latin, that he would resign because he could not keep up with the demands of the papacy. Francis has said he, too, would consider resigning if he found himself in that situation, after Benedict XVI “opened the door” and became the first pope in 600 years to step down.

Giovanna Chirri, the reporter for the Italian news agency ANSA who was covering the consistory that day and broke the news because she understood Latin, said she did not believe Francis would follow in Benedict XVI’s footsteps, “although some would wish that.”

“I could be wrong, but I hope not,” she told The Associated Press. “As long as he is alive, the world and the church need him.”

Francis' English-language biographer Austen Ivereigh said it was possible and that all that matters is that Francis is “totally free to make the right decision.”

“The pope has always said that the papacy is for life, and he has shown that there is no problem with a frail and elderly pope ,” Ivereigh said. “But he has also said that if he ever had a long-term degenerative or debilitating condition that prevented him from fully carrying out the exercise of papal ministry, he would consider resigning. And so would any pope.”

Francis has said that if he were to resign, he would live in Rome, outside the Vatican, and would be called “bishop emeritus of Rome” rather than pope emeritus, given the problems that occurred with Benedict XVI’s experiment as a retired pope .

Despite his best efforts, Benedict XVI remained a focal point for conservatives before he died in 2022, and his home inside the Vatican Gardens became a pilgrimage destination for the right.

Francis has also written a letter of resignation , to be invoked if he becomes medically incapacitated.

In addition to the audience with Parolin, the Vatican released Francis' message for Lent, the period before Easter, in another sign of forward-thinking.

In a subsequent bulletin, Francis named several new bishops for Brazil, a new archbishop for Vancouver and amended the law of Vatican City State to create a new hierarchy.

Francis recently named the first woman to lead the city-state , Sister Raffaella Petrini , who will take over on March 1. In Tuesday's announcement, Francis specifically empowered her to lead and to tell her priestly underlings what to do.

Many, if not all, of these decisions were likely in the works for some time. But the Vatican has said Francis has been doing some work at the hospital , including signing documents, and anyway there is no provision in the Catholic Church to transfer full papal power except in the case of a pope's resignation or death .

The only other outsider known to have visited the pope, aside from his personal secretaries and medical staff, is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who visited him on February 19.

On Tuesday morning, the Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: “The pope slept well, all night.”

The night before, doctors had said he remained in critical condition at Rome’s Gemelli hospital with double pneumonia, but reported a “slight improvement” in some lab 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 with which he has maintained contact since the war there began.

Doctors have said the condition of the Argentine pope, who had part of a lung removed when he was young , is delicate, given his age, frailty and pre-existing lung disease before the bilateral pneumonia set in. But in Monday’s update, they said he had had no further breathing crises since Saturday, and the flow and concentration of supplemental oxygen have been reduced slightly. The slight kidney failure detected Sunday was not a cause for alarm at the moment, doctors said.

Francis' right-wing critics have been spreading alarming rumors about his condition, but his allies have encouraged him and expressed hope that he will recover. Many pointed out that, from the very night of his election as pope, Francis had asked for the prayers of ordinary faithful, a request he repeats daily.

“I am a witness to everything he did for the Church, with a great love for Jesus,” Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica . “Humanly speaking, I do not believe that it is time for him to go to Heaven.”

At Gemelli on a rainy Tuesday morning, Romans and visitors alike prayed for the pontiff. Hoang Phuc Nguyen, who lives in Canada but was visiting Rome for a Holy Year pilgrimage, came to the medical center to say a special prayer for the pope before the statue of St. John Paul II at the main entrance to the complex.

“We heard that he is in the hospital and we are very concerned about his health,” Nguyen said. “He is our father and it is our responsibility to pray for him.”