Pope’s work during convalescence includes clearing path for saints from Venezuela, Papua New Guinea

By COLLEEN BARRY
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis spends part of his days at his desk working and concelebrates Mass daily in his private chapel, the Vatican said Tuesday, in signs of continued improvements during his convalescence at the Vatican after beating life-threatening double pneumonia during a five-week hospital stay.

“The pope is continuing physical and respiratory therapy, with the expected results, which means his voice is also improving,” the Vatican said. “There is obviously also time for work, which the pope does partly sitting at a desk.”

That included clearing the path to canonization for the first saints to hail from Venezuela and Papua New Guinea, as well as an archbishop killed during the massacres of Armenians in 1915.

The decrees were approved last Friday in coordination with the curia, or Vatican hierarchy, from Santa Marta, the Vatican hotel where the pope’s apartment is located.

Announced on Monday, they relate to the canonization of Peter To Rot, a layman from Papua New Guinea who was declared a martyr for the faith after he died in prison in World War II, Venezuelan religious founder Mother María del Monte Carmelo and Archbishop Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan, who was executed during the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 along with 13 priests when they refused to renounce their faith.

Maloyan was among an estimated 1.5 million people killed in the events, which are widely viewed by scholars at the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

The Vatican said that the 88-year-old pope remains in a good mood, and he continues to receive greetings of affection from the faithful.

An X-ray this week shows a “slight improvement” in a lingering lung infection, the Vatican said. Doctors have said that the pope has recovered from the pneumonia, but that a fungal infection in his airways would take months to clear under pharmaceutical treatment.

Francis hasn’t had any official visitors since returning on March 23 to the Vatican, although the doctor who coordinated his hospital treatment at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, Dr. Sergio Alfieri, visited him last Wednesday and intends to make weekly visits to monitor his recovery.

Doctors have ordered two months of rest to fully recover from the illness that nearly killed him, and to avoid large gatherings. The Vatican hasn’t yet said whether the pope would be able to participate in any celebration during Holy Week leading up to Easter on April 20.

Alfieri said that the pope was near death during an acute respiratory crisis eight days after his Feb. 14 hospitalization, and that both the pope and his primary medical caregiver consented to “decisive” measures despite the risks that it posed to his organs.