The Vatican says Pope Francis has continued making decisions and is improving, but his two-week hospital stay poses uncomfortable, unanswered questions about Vatican decision-making.

Catholics in Rome gathered to pray outside the hospital where Pope Francis is being treated and remains in a 'critical' condition.

This was the first and only time a pope visited the Alamo City, drawing an estimated 350,000 people to his outdoor Mass at Westover Hills.

A special meeting of Cardinals has reportedly been scheduled, though the Vatican denies that it is linked to any announcement of the 88-year-old pontiff stepping down. Still, others ask why the Pope hasn't at least appeared from his hospital window.

(AP video: Paolo Lucariello, Trisha Thomas) A marble statue of late Pope John Paul II is backdropped by the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, where Pope Francis was hospitalized Friday after a weeklong bout of bronchitis ...

Gandhi’s Scant Garb Bars Audience with Pope.” So read the headline of a New York Times report, from December 13, 1931, that the Vatican had cancelled a meeting between Pius XI and “the Indian nationalist leader” because the Pope thought he might be criticized “if he received the visitor in his usual scanty clothing.

The Gemelli hospital has been treating popes for more than thirty years.

(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) FILE-- The tapestries showing late Pope John Paul II, left, and Pope John XXIII hang from the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica as faithful and pilgrims crowd St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Friday, April 25, 2014.

Pope Francis is continuing his slow recovery from double pneumonia and beating back speculation of an imminent death, resignation or conclave.