VATICAN CITY, Holy See (AFP) — Pope Francis spent his 10th day in hospital Sunday as Catholics around the world prayed for his recovery, the day after the Vatican warned the 88-year-old’s condition was “critical”.

The Argentine pontiff, who is being treated for double pneumonia, suffered a prolonged asthma-style attack on Saturday and required blood transfusions for a low platelet count.

On Sunday morning the Holy See said “the night passed peacefully, the pope rested” — indicating no repeat of the crisis the previous day, Vatican sources said.

But Francis, who had part of a lung removed when he was a young man, is still receiving oxygen through a tube in his nostrils in the papal suite at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.

In a message published Sunday but written in the past few days, the Jesuit thanked hospital staff and said he had confidence in his treatment.

“I am confidently continuing my hospitalisation at the Gemelli Hospital, carrying on with the necessary treatment — and rest is also part of the therapy!” he said.

“I ask you to pray for me,” he concluded in the text published in lieu of his weekly Sunday Angelus, which he normally delivers from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square.

– Suffering more –
Francis, who has been head of the Catholic Church since 2013, was admitted on February 14 initially with bronchitis, but his condition has deteriorated since then.

In its evening update Saturday, the Vatican warned his “condition continues to be critical, therefore the pope is not out of danger”.

It said Francis was alert and “spent the day in an armchair even if he was suffering more than” the day before.

It said he had a “prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis, which also required the application of high-flow oxygen”.

Daily blood tests also “showed thrombocytopenia, associated with anaemia, which required the administration of blood transfusions”, it added.

Thrombocytopenia is a condition that occurs when the platelet count in the blood is too low, which can cause trouble stopping bleeding.

Blood or platelet transfusions, delivered via an intravenous (IV) line, are given to people who are either bleeding heavily or at very high risk of bleeding, according to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“The pope gets worse,” headlined Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday, while La Repubblica described it as the “darkest day” at the Vatican.

– Prayers for the pope –
Well-wishers have been leaving candles outside the Gemelli since Francis was admitted, and a special mass was planned for Sunday evening in Rome.

“I am praying for him, for his health, because he is a special person for all of us,” Italian teacher Ilde Zito told AFP at the hospital.

Prayers and messages of solidarity also came in from among the almost 1.4 billion Catholics across the globe, alongside other Christians and world leaders.

In the cathedral of Buenos Aires, where Francis was once archbishop, TV screens at the entrance showed images of then Jorge Bergoglio’s good works, and the priest held a special mass.

“He is strong, he has always been strong, but there is nature. I know he is very ill and old. I hope he recovers, but it makes me sad,” Hector Armando Diaz, 76, a retired sales clerk, told AFP there.

Across the world in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, a former bastion of the Islamic State group that Francis visited in 2021, at least a dozen churches also held prayers for him.

“This is the least we can do to express our solidarity, love, and appreciation for this great person,” said university professor Adnan Hadi.

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, offered her hopes on social media for a speedy recovery for the “great humanist” Francis, the first pope from the Americas.

Francis’s continued hospitalisation has sparked huge concern about his health but also speculation about whether he might step down.

He has always left the door open to following his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who in 2013 became the first pope since the Middle Ages to resign.

But he has repeatedly said it was not the time.

The pope maintains a punishing work schedule. He carried out a mammoth 12-day tour to the Asia-Pacific in September, but has suffered increasing health issues.

He underwent colon surgery in 2021 and an operation for a hernia two years later. He is overweight and has constant hip and knee pain, which forces him to use a wheelchair.