There’s a first time for everything.
But the phrase “copious secretions” in an official update from the Vatican on Pope Francis? That level of detail may be surprising even to those who aren’t aware historically how taboo it was considered to openly discuss a pope’s health.
As leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, the pope is a revered spiritual figure. Talking about his earthly health was profane.
“Downplaying the pope’s health problems is part of a great Vatican tradition. It’s often said in Rome that ‘the pope is in good health until he dies, and maybe even a little after’,” noted French Catholic media outlet LaCroix International in March 2023, during another one of Francis’s hospitalizations.
Yet, in an update on Monday, the Vatican Press Office wrote, “Today the Holy Father presented two episodes of acute respiratory insufficiency, caused by a major accumulation of endobronchial mucus, and consequent bronchospasm.
“Two bronchoscopies were therefore performed, with the need for aspiration of copious secretions.”
This follows weeks of similar, daily updates that the Pope has battled double pneumonia at Rome’s Gemelli hospital since Feb. 14. The press office has shared when the Pope had a fever, how his kidneys were functioning and his white blood count. It has provided such details as the pontiff’s use of high-flow oxygen and his need for blood transfusions.
“These are very specific details we would never have had in the past,” said David Perlich, CBC’s Vatican analyst who has been covering the topic for the past 25 years.
“I’ve been surprised by the level of candour and the level of detail.”
So, why the change?
Dr. Samir Gupta breaks down the latest update from the Vatican on Pope Francis’s health as he battles double pneumonia.
A new transparency
The transparency is certainly new, even for Francis, who was thought to have long considered health a private matter, Perlich explained.
Historically, the Vatican has operated in a much more opaque way, notes the New York Times, with a tendency toward obfuscation. For instance, the stomach cancer that afflicted Pope John XXIII for at least eight months was only revealed long after his death in 1963.
And Pope John Paul II, whose papacy lasted from 1978 to 2005, had visible tremors for years before the Vatican finally confirmed in 2003 that he had Parkinson’s disease. On Feb. 25 2005, the morning after John Paul II’s surgery for a tracheotomy, the Vatican released a statement that he was breathing and eating well, and enjoyed a breakfast that included 10 biscotti. He died just over a month later.
“The Vatican right now is doing a very delicate balance with the Pope’s health information,” Perlich said.
“On the one side, they want to respect the privacy and the dignity of an elderly man who is in the hospital and is very, very ill. On the other side, there is an acknowledgement that as the leader of over a billion Roman Catholics in the world, and a globally famous person, people are necessarily curious about the Pope’s health.”
Information in the disinformation era
And if you don’t release accurate information, you get rumours and speculation, Perlich said.
When Francis was first hospitalized, all kinds of reports — true and not — abounded about Francis’s health. They’d taken on a life of their own in an age of chat groups, conspiracy theories and internet memes — not to mention the perennial Roman fixation on the Pope and who might succeed him.
On Feb. 21, Catholic news website Crux reported that several top Pope aides were hitting back against rumours of Francis’s death or resignation, going on Italian television to assure people that “the things that are said are exactly what’s happening.”
So this transparency about his health actually affords Francis more dignity in a difficult situation, Perlich said — even down to the information about his “secretions” (which Perlich suggests is really more of an Italian translation issue).
“There is so much more dignity being given to his illness and to a very ill 88-year-old man because they are sharing the information. The cruelty of gossip and speculation is not there.”
