VATICAN CITY, Holy See (AFP) – Pope Francis returned home to the Vatican on Sunday after more than five weeks in hospital with pneumonia, taking time before leaving to thank well-wishers for their support.

Looking tired and worn, the 88-year-old Catholic leader waved to a crowd outside Rome’s Gemelli hospital from a balcony, the first time he has been seen in public since he was admitted on February 14.

“Thank you, everyone,” a weak-sounding Francis said into a microphone, seated in a wheelchair, as hundreds of pilgrims chanted his name.

He waved his hands from his lap, doing an occasional thumbs-up sign, and drew laughter when he noted, smiling: “I can see that woman with yellow flowers, well done.”

Francis, who had bags under his eyes, was on the balcony for two minutes before being discharged from the hospital immediately afterwards.

The Argentine pontiff left by car wearing a cannula — a plastic tube tucked into his nostrils which delivers oxygen — an indication of the continued fragility of his health.

His doctor said Saturday that he will need “at least two months” of convalescence at his home in the Santa Martha guesthouse in the Vatican.

– ‘Joy’ –

Pilgrims gathered Sunday outside the Gemelli, where he was treated in a special suite on the 10th floor, expressed their delight at seeing him in person.

His appearance “just filled me and I think many of the people who are here with a great sense of joy,” Larry James Kulick, a bishop from the US state of Pennsylvania told AFP.

“It was just a wonderful opportunity to see him and I think he responded so much to the people’s prayers and to all of the chanting,” he said.

“I hope it lifted his spirits, I think it did.”

Domenico Papisca Marra, a 69-year-old Catholic from Reggio Calabria in southern Italy, added: “I am really happy to have seen him… I am in really love with Pope Francis,” he said.

The pope was driven away in a white Fiat 500 L, initially heading to Santa Maria Maggiore, the Rome church where he stops to pray before and after trips.

There he left on the altar the bouquet of yellow roses he had spotted from his hospital balcony, that were given to him by Carmela Mancuso, a 72-year-old well-wisher.

“I hope he gets better soon and returns to us, as before,” an emotional Mancuso told Vatican News.

Francis was then seen arriving back at the Vatican.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who visited the pontiff in hospital, she was “happy” at his return home, expressing on X her “affection and gratitude for his tireless commitment and his precious guidance”.

– ‘A period of rest’ –

This was the pope’s fourth and longest hospital stay since becoming head of the world’s almost 1.4 billion  Catholics in 2013 — and the most fraught.

Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, twice suffered “very critical” moments in the past month which his life was in danger, his doctors said, while stressing that he remained conscious.

Despite the Vatican issuing twice daily bulletins for much of his hospital stay, the pope’s absence from public view sparked speculation that he may even have died.

The Vatican released on March 6 of an audio recording of the pope in which he sounded weak and very breathless.

Francis will require physiotherapy to recover use of his voice, one of his doctors, Sergio Alfieri, told reporters on Saturday.

“When you suffer bilateral pneumonia, your lungs are damaged and your respiratory muscles are also strained. It takes time for the voice to get back to normal,” he said.

– Easter doubts –

Francis continued to do bits of work in hospital when possible, but his medical team has made it clear he will not be mingling with crowds or kissing babies soon.

“Further progress will take place at his home, because a hospital — even if this seems strange — is the worst place to recover because it’s where you can contract more infections,” Alfieri said.

“During the convalescence period he will not be able to take on his usual daily appointments,” he said.

Such restrictions are not expected to be easily borne by the Jesuit pope, who previously carried out a packed schedule and took evident pleasure interacting with his flock.

Questions also remain over who might lead the busy schedule of religious events leading up to Easter, the holiest period in the Christian calendar.

The increasingly fragile state of Francis’s health has spurred speculation as to whether he could opt to step down and make way for a successor, as his predecessor Benedict XVI had done.

Asked by reporters on Monday about this, Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin replied: “No, no, no. Absolutely not.”