As Pope Francis suffered his tenth day in an Italian hospital, Catholics gathered in St. Peter’s Square Monday night to pray for the pope and for his health.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin led the Church in a rosary offered for a pontiff suffering from double pneumonia and a respiratory infection, which have together weakened significantly Pope Francis.
While the Vatican has been circumspect about the pope’s health, New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan told reporters Sunday that Francis is “probably close to death.”
Still, some Catholics are praying for the pope to recover. And if he does, he won’t be the first pontiff to pull through when faced with genuine mortal danger.
As Catholics pray for Pope Francis, consider these popes who faced close brushes with mortality. Some have not been canonized — but if they are enjoying the beatific vision, they are also likely praying for Pope Francis.
St. Peter
The Acts of the Apostles recounts how King Herod, after killing the Apostle James, had St. Peter imprisoned, with the intention of sending him to trial after Passover. Peter might well have faced execution.
Peter was bound in double chains, with two guards stationed inside the prison and two more outside. But he escaped when an angel appeared and freed him overnight.
Scripture recounts several occasions on which Peter was imprisoned for the Gospel, and he did eventually go on to die as a martyr, but on the occasion of his escape from Herod’s prison, his ministry as pope continued.
St. Martin I
Pope St. Martin I was pope in the early 600s.
Upon becoming pope, he convened the Lateran Council of 649, which condemned Monothelitism, a popular heresy which held that Christ did not have a human will.
The council’s condemnation of Monothelitism drew the ire of Emperor Constans II, who ordered the pope be arrested and sent to Constantinople.
Martin was going to be executed.
But instead he was saved by the intervention of Paul II, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who had more pull with the emperor.
Instead of death, Martin was exiled to the Crimean Peninsula, where he lived out his remaining days.
Pope Clement VII
Clement VII’s troubled papacy took place in the 1500s, amid the Protestant Reformation and fighting among the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Spain.
During that conflict, in 1527, more than 20,000 troops under the banner of the Holy Roman Empire flooded Rome.
In the attack that followed, the Swiss Guards defended St. Peter’s Basilica, while Pope Clement escaped through a secret corridor into the Castel Sant’Angelo.
The pope remained in the fortress for six months, before paying a large ransom in exchange for his life.
He fled the city until it was safe to return the following year.
Pope Leo XIII
Best known for his 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, Leo XIII served as pope for 25 years, spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In 1899, the pope was rumored to be approaching death due to a serious illness, reported in the newspapers at the time to be pneumonia.
But it turned out that Leo was actually suffering from an orange-sized cyst, which had become inflamed.
In an indication of the discretion of the time, as compared to the hyper-information culture of today, The Pillar has not been able to determine where the cyst was located in the pontiff’s body.
Leo underwent a lengthy surgery to remove the cyst. It was successful, and he was able to return to work. He would serve as pope for another four years before dying of pneumonia.
Pope Pius XII
Venerable Pope Pius XII served as pope from 1939 until his death in 1958.
But he considered resigning the papacy four years before his death, when he was afflicted with a stomach ailment so severe and long-lasting that he questioned his ability to carry out his ministry.
At first, the ailment was described by Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano as “a slight indisposition” marked by persistent hiccups. That later developed into a fever with nausea and vomiting.
The illness continued, leaving the pope greatly weakened. He underwent treatments that caused hallucinations and nightmares.
Although he recovered, he was notably more frail after the illness until his eventual death following a series of strokes in 1958.
Pope St. John Paul II
On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was blessing the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square from the Popemobile when shots rang out.
The pope was hit by a bullet that narrowly missed his vital organs. He was rushed to Gemelli hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. He would later attribute his survival to the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima, whose feast was that day.
John Paul II later met with and forgave the young Turkish gunman who had tried to kill him. The pope would go on to live for nearly 25 more years, until his eventual death in 2005.
Pope Benedict XVI
When Pope Benedict XVI announced his unexpected resignation on Feb. 28, 2013, he cited a "lack of strength of mind and body" as a result of his age - he was 85 years old at the time.
His resignation - the first papal resignation in more than 600 years - prompted widespread speculation that he was rapidly approaching the end of his life.
But that wasn’t it at all — in fact, Benedict would go on to live nearly another decade - albeit not as pope - before he eventually died Dec. 31, 2022.
