A day before Pope Francis sent a much-welcome audio message from hospital thanking people for their prayers, Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP commented on the “spiritual fittingness” of the timing of his prolonged illness during the season of Lent.
The Sydney archbishop was in Rome for a general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, where he serves as a member.
While in the eternal city he has prayed the Rosary along with the crowds in St Peter’s Square who gather each night with a different cardinal to pray for the pope’s recovery from bilateral pneumonia and respiratory infections.
“The Pope matters a lot to us as a unifier for the whole church and teacher for the whole church and governor for the whole church — so, when he’s not well, it troubles every Catholic and many Catholics have a particular love for this pope,” Archbishop Fisher told 7 News in St Peter’s Square.
“I think that the Pope going through this stage of his life in Lent is actually very spiritually fitting, because that’s the time we look forward to Christ’s suffering in Holy Week and ultimate resurrection.
“So I think if you’d ask the Pope if you’re going to be sick at any time, if you’re going to be sick for an extended period, when should it be? I think he’d say in Lent.”
People gathered in the square erupted with applause when a short audio message in Spanish from Pope Francis was played prior to the recitation of the evening rosary 6 March, which was also his 21st day in the city’s Gemelli Hospital.
Recorded earlier that day, it was the first time the world heard the 88-year-old’s voice since his admission, and his health battle was evident in its weak and laboured delivery.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers for my health from the square,” Pope Francis was heard to say.
“I accompany you from here. May God bless you and the Virgin protect you. Thank you.”
The rosary was led by Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, who announced the recording as “good news, a beautiful gift.”
The Vatican continues to report the pope’s doctors are reserving their prognosis and Archbishop Fisher told 7 News it was a “very strange feeling” in Rome, “because all the different officials don’t know what the future is.”
“Who will be pope in a month from now, or a year from now, or 10 years from now?” he asked.
“You pick up the anxiety and the uncertainty in the air here.”
