Pope Fran­cis was hos­pi­tal­ized Fri­day to treat a week­long bout of bron­chi­tis and un­der­go di­ag­nos­tic tests, the Vat­i­can said, con­firm­ing the lat­est is­sues with the 88-year-old’s pon­tiff’s health that forced him to can­cel his agen­da through Mon­day at least.

Fran­cis has com­plained of breath­ing trou­ble and was di­ag­nosed with bron­chi­tis Feb. 6, but had con­tin­ued to hold dai­ly au­di­ences in his Vat­i­can ho­tel suite. He at­tend­ed his gen­er­al au­di­ence Wednes­day and presided at an out­door Mass on Sun­day. But he had hand­ed off his speech­es for an aide to read aloud, say­ing he was hav­ing trou­ble breath­ing.

On Fri­day, he ap­peared bloat­ed and pale dur­ing the hand­ful of au­di­ences he held be­fore go­ing to the hos­pi­tal. The bloat­ing ap­peared to in­di­cate that the med­ica­tion he was tak­ing to treat the lung in­fec­tion was mak­ing him re­tain wa­ter.

Christo­pher Lamb, CNN’s Vat­i­can cor­re­spon­dent, who saw Fran­cis at the be­gin­ning of an au­di­ence Fri­day with CNN head Mark Thomp­son, said the pope was men­tal­ly alert but strug­gling to speak for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods due to breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties.

Fran­cis, who had part of one lung re­moved as a young man, has long bat­tled health prob­lems, es­pe­cial­ly bouts of acute bron­chi­tis in win­ter. He us­es a wheel­chair, walk­er or cane when mov­ing around his apart­ment and re­cent­ly fell twice, hurt­ing his arm and chin.

Fran­cis was hos­pi­tal­ized at Rome’s Gemel­li hos­pi­tal, where he was last ad­mit­ted in June 2023 to have surgery to re­move in­testi­nal scar tis­sue and re­pair a her­nia in the ab­dom­i­nal wall. A few months be­fore that, he spent three days in the hos­pi­tal to re­ceive in­tra­venous an­tibi­otics for a res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tion.

The Vat­i­can said Fran­cis was ad­mit­ted af­ter his Fri­day au­di­ences. In ad­di­tion to reg­u­lar Vat­i­can of­fi­cials, and Thomp­son, the pope met Fri­day morn­ing with the Slo­vak Prime Min­is­ter, Robert Fi­co.

“This morn­ing, at the end of the au­di­ences, Pope Fran­cis will be ad­mit­ted to the Agosti­no Gemel­li Poly­clin­ic for some nec­es­sary di­ag­nos­tic tests and to con­tin­ue in a hos­pi­tal set­ting treat­ment for bron­chi­tis that is still on­go­ing,” a Vat­i­can state­ment said.

No de­tails were giv­en about the du­ra­tion of Fran­cis’ hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, but it lat­er an­nounced he was can­celling his par­tic­i­pa­tion in Holy Year events through Mon­day.

The pope had a busy week­end agen­da planned with an au­di­ence with artists in town for the Ju­bilee on Sat­ur­day, a Mass for them on Sun­day and a trip to Rome’s famed Cinecit­ta stu­dios on Mon­day. While a Vat­i­can car­di­nal would pre­side over the Mass in Fran­cis’ place, the Vat­i­can said the oth­er events were can­celled “due to the im­pos­si­bil­i­ty of the pope to par­tic­i­pate.”

The Vat­i­can an­nounce­ments, de­liv­ered ahead of Fran­cis’ hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, came in sharp con­trast to its 2023 hos­pi­tal­iza­tion for bron­chi­tis that caused con­fu­sion.

Ini­tial­ly, the Vat­i­can had said he had gone in for sched­uled tests, but the pon­tiff lat­er re­vealed he had felt pain in his chest and was rushed to the hos­pi­tal where bron­chi­tis was di­ag­nosed. He was put on in­tra­venous an­tibi­otics and was re­leased April 1, quip­ping as he left that he was “still alive.”

Fran­cis spent 10 days at the same hos­pi­tal in Ju­ly 2021 fol­low­ing in­testi­nal surgery for a bow­el nar­row­ing. He cred­it­ed his per­son­al nurse then with sav­ing his life for hav­ing in­sist­ed he get the prob­lem checked out.

It wasn’t the first time he cred­it­ed a nurse with sav­ing his life. Fran­cis re­count­ed his near-death ex­pe­ri­ence with his youth­ful lung in­fec­tion in his re­cent au­to­bi­og­ra­phy “Hope,” in which he cred­it­ed his sur­vival to a nurse, an Ital­ian nun named Sis­ter Cor­nelia Caraglio.

“She was an ex­pe­ri­enced, cul­tured woman who had worked as a teacher in Greece, and she quick­ly re­al­ized the se­ri­ous­ness of my sit­u­a­tion: She called the spe­cial­ist, who drained one and a half liters of flu­id from my lungs. It be­gan a slow and un­steady climb back from the brink be­tween life and death,” he re­called.

It was she who, af­ter the doc­tor pre­scribed a cer­tain dose of peni­cillin and strep­to­mycin, or­dered that it be dou­bled, he re­called.

“She had in­tu­ition and prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence, and cer­tain­ly no lack of courage,” he re­called. “My com­pan­ions came from the sem­i­nary to vis­it me; some al­so gave me their blood for trans­fu­sions. Grad­u­al­ly the fevers de­cid­ed to leave me, and the light be­gan to re­turn.”

As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­li­gion cov­er­age re­ceives sup­port through the AP’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Con­ver­sa­tion US, with fund­ing from Lil­ly En­dow­ment Inc. The AP is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for this con­tent.

By NICOLE WIN­FIELD

ROME (AP)