Pallade Veneta - Ailing pope works on canonisations as Catholics pray for recovery

Despite his critical condition, the leader of the world's nearly 1.4 billion Catholics has striven to keep up with Church matters during his stay, according to the Vatican.

After revealing a "slight improvement" in the Argentine pope's condition Monday evening, the Vatican said Tuesday that he had received its secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin the day before, and his number two, Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra.

Francis approved the canonisation of two Venezuelan and Italian laymen who died in the early 20th century, while authorising the first steps towards sainthood for three 19th-century priests from Spain, Italy and Poland, the Vatican said.

The pope has been working from his special papal suite on the 10th floor of Rome's Gemelli hospital, where he was admitted February 14 with breathing difficulties.

His condition worsened, with asthmatic respiratory attacks at the weekend that required high levels of oxygen and blood transfusions to combat anaemia.

Catholics across the globe have gathered to pray for the pope as some expressed hope he may have turned a corner on what doctors warn could be a long path to recovery.

The Vatican's Monday update offered a glimmer of light, saying that Francis had suffered no new respiratory attacks that required "high-flow oxygen", and that his laboratory tests had improved.

He had also called the Gaza parish priest, as he has routinely done since the war broke out, the Vatican said. This time, he was thanking him for a video the parish sent him.

"The whole world is praying for you... and everyone wishes you good health", the priest said in the video, which was published on Vatican News and showed him surrounded by his flock.

The pope remains fragile, and his medical team has cautioned it will take time for drug treatments to show positive effects.

"Considering the complexity of the clinical picture," his doctors decline to "decide on the prognosis", the Vatican said Monday.

Hundreds of faithful are expected to gather again in St Peter's Square on Tuesday evening.

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, a former coordinator of the pope's Council of Cardinals, told La Repubblica daily Tuesday he felt hopeful the pope would pull through.

"It's not yet time for him to go to heaven," Maradiaga said.

"He is someone who does not back down in the face of difficulty, does not get discouraged, does not freeze, and does not stop moving forward," he told the paper.

- 'Breath of fresh air' -

Well-wishers have left candles and photos outside the hospital, where a special prayer was led by Gemelli's chaplain on Monday.

In Buenos Aires, where the former Jorge Bergoglio served as archbishop before being made pope in 2013, hundreds of Argentines prayed for the pontiff.

Speaking in the plaza where Bergoglio used to rail against injustice and inequality, Archbishop Jorge Garcia Cuerva called Francis's papacy "a breath of oxygen for a world suffocated by violence, suffocated by selfishness, suffocated by exclusion".

"Let our prayer be that breath of fresh air that reaches his lungs so that he can recover his health," he said.

Special prayers for Francis will be celebrated Tuesday evening at an Argentine church in Rome.

- Recovery time -

Doctors have cautioned that any recovery will take time and that Francis will likely stay in hospital beyond this week.

The pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has increasingly suffered health complications in recent years.

He is prone to bronchitis, is overweight and suffers knee and hip pain that has led to his reliance on a wheelchair.

"For an older person like Pope Francis, with all the added complications... you have to wait even longer for a complete recovery," Andreoni said.

G.Riotto--PV