In a letter, a few children that are patients at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital expressed their closeness to Pope Francis, who has been in hospital since July 4, 2021, for a pre-scheduled surgical intervention, to treat confirmed diverticular stenosis.

The Letter

 “We have heard you are not very well, and that you are now in the same Hospital as we are,” began the letter that the children and youngsters hospitalized in the Paediatric Oncology Room of the Gemelli Hospital wrote the Pontiff. It was a brief message that he was able to read.  “Although we can’t see each other, we send you a hearty embrace and wish you a speedy recovery,” continued the letter.

Yesterday, the Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital published a drawing on its Twitter account, which showed a girl holding the Pope’s hand in the Hospital. Next to Giulia’s prayer, who did the drawing, there was a dedication: “Dear Pope Francis hear my prayer. I heard yours when I was ill.”

Greeting to the Children of Oncology

 In the afternoon of July 7, the Holy Father “wished to express his fatherly closeness to the little patients of the neighboring Department of Paediatric Oncology and Paediatric Neurosurgery, sending them his affectionate greeting.”

In the late afternoon of the 7th, the Pope “had a low-grade fever,” reported Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office.

And, this morning, Pope Francis underwent “routine and microbiological tests and a computed tomography of the thorax and abdomen, which turned out to be negative,” he said.

While in Rome’s Gemelli hospital, Pope Francis has expressed his closeness to children with cancer or going in for brain surgery, as well as to all who suffer.

Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, shared this in an update he communicated in a July 8 statement where he said His Holiness “spent a quiet day, eating and moving unassisted.”

Yesterday afternoon, Bruni told journalists, “he wished to express his paternal closeness to the young patients in the nearby pediatric oncology and children’s neurosurgery wards, sending them his affectionate greetings.”

Translation by Virginia M. Forrester