Off The Record
Pope Francis’ Doctor Speaks Out: The Emotional Last Moments And The Staff’s Painful Decision
The surgeon who was by Pope Francis’s bedside when he passed away discussed how the late pope faced his untimely death and how medical professionals carried out one of his last requests.
As he lay open-eyed in a coma just before his death, Sergio Alfieri, who carried out two vital procedures on the Pope in 2021 and 2023, claimed he did not react to any stimulation from medical personnel.
After visiting his Santa Marta home, Alfieri, the Pope’s main surgeon who oversaw the Holy Father’s medical team at the Gemelli hospital, reported that the late pope did not seem to be experiencing any respiratory issues.
However, the 88-year-old did not react to painful stimuli and did not answer when Alfieri called out to him.
The surgeon claimed there was ‘nothing more to be done’ at this time, fulfilling one of Pope’s last desires by allowing him to pass away at home instead of in the hospital.
Ahead of the burial this weekend, tens of thousands of people flocked to St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to the late pope.
Police anticipate sizable crowds for the occasion, so security has been increased around the Vatican.
Looking back on the last days of the Pope’s life, Alfieri said he saw the late pope on Saturday afternoon in a positive mood.
Less than 48 hours before his death, Francis appeared “very well” and resolved to fulfill his papal obligations, according to the surgeon.
He even requested that the surgeon set up a Wednesday meeting with the seventy employees who had cared for him while he was in the hospital in Rome.
However, Massimiliano Strappetti, the Pope’s personal nurse, called the surgeon early on Monday to warn that the pontiff’s condition was deteriorating and that he might have to return to Gemelli hospital.
Twenty minutes later, Alfieri reached Casa Santa Marta, the austere Vatican guesthouse where Francis decided to spend twelve years.
However, Strappetti was informed by the surgeon, who operated on Francis twice in July 2021 and June 2023 at Gemelli Hospital, that the pontiff’s time was probably nearing to an end and that there was no need to transport him.
“We risked letting him die during transport, I explained that hospitalisation would have been useless,” he told Italian outlet Corriere Della Sera.
“Strappetti knew that the Pope wanted to die at home, when we were at the Gemelli he always said so.”
“He passed away shortly after.”
“I remained there with Massimiliano, Andrea, the other nurses and the secretaries; then they all arrived and Cardinal Parolin asked us to pray and we recited the rosary with him. I felt privileged and now I can say that I was.”
“That morning I gave him a caress as a last farewell.”
It was ‘tough to conceive that he needed to be hospitalised’, Alfieri said when he initially arrived at the Pope’s Santa Marta home on Monday morning.
The surgeon said Francis’s eyes were open and his breathing was normal, but he was unresponsive.
He added: On Monday at about 5:30 Strappetti called me [saying], “The Holy Father is very ill, we must return to Gemelli”.
“I pre-alerted everyone and twenty minutes later I was there in Santa Marta.”
“I entered his room and his eyes were open. I noticed that he had no breathing problems and then I tried to call him but he didn’t answer.”
“He didn’t respond to stimuli, not even painful ones. At that moment I understood that there was nothing more to be done. He was in a coma.”
Francis asserted that taking him to Gemelli Hospital would not have increased his chances of surviving.
“Even doing a CT scan would have given us a more precise diagnosis, but nothing more,” Alfieri told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
“It was one of those strokes that take you away in an hour.”
The late Pope was rushed to hospital on February 14 this year and was subsequently diagnosed with double pneumonia.
After being freed a little more than a month later, Francis began to appear in public, making his last appearance on Easter Sunday when he drove his popemobile to St. Peter’s Square to meet millions of people.
He informed medical professionals in the latter weeks of his life that he did not want mechanical breathing, which may have extended his life by a few days.
As soon as the Pope woke up on the morning of his stroke, the medical personnel at his bedside realized something was amiss.
“At 5am, the Holy Father woke up to drink a glass of water,” Alfieri told La Repubblica.
“He rolled onto his side and the nurse noticed that something was wrong.”
“He was struggling to react. The Vatican doctor on duty for resuscitation was called. They called me around 5:30 a.m. and I was on the scene within fifteen minutes. I found him with oxygen and an infusion.”
“I listened to his lungs, which were clean, without rattling. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t responding to questions or to the pain of the pinches.”
“He was already in a coma. His pulse was slowing and his breathing was becoming more and more shallow.”
He passed away on Monday at 7.35 a.m. local time, barely over two hours after Alfieri got Strappetti’s alarming phone call.
“He died without suffering, and at home,” Alfieri added.
At the Gemelli he didn’t say, I want to go back to Santa Marta. He said, “I want to go home.”
According to the surgeon, Francis had not previously trusted his medical team “much,” but in his last days, he “got closer” to them once more.
The ailing pope told reporters just days before his death that he was “living it as best I can” after suffering from health problems and decreased mobility brought on in part by his aging body and growing waist.
Up to his last weeks, the pope had maintained a hectic itinerary. He visited Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore on his 12-day tour of south-east Asia and Oceania in September 2024.
He wanted to express his gratitude in person to all 70 employees who helped him at the facility, even though he was instructed to rest for two months after being released from the hospital.
However, upon his release, his recuperation was erratic, and on several occasions, medical professionals feared that his time was running out.
“On one occasion, the pope’surprised everyone’ by surviving a particularly difficult night,” Alfieri added.
He claimed that Francis acted as though he had a specific goal in mind as he neared death.
He said, “Going back to work was part of the therapy and he never exposed himself to danger.”
“It’s as if, approaching the end, he decided to do everything he had to.”
“I have the clear feeling that he felt he had to do a series of things before dying.”
This featured a final ride in the popemobile to welcome Sunday worshippers.
“Do you think I can manage it?” he had asked his personal nurse before taking the plunge, according to the Vatican News, the Holy See’s media outlet.
He was reassured by Strappetti, whom he had earlier attributed to saving his life.
Then, surrounded by dozens of bodyguards, Francis spent roughly fifteen minutes blessing infants and waving at the throng from his popemobile.
In what were some of his final words, he told his personal nurse afterwards, “Thank you for bringing me back to the square.”
He gave him his favorite pie, and the Pope looked’very well’ the day before, according to Alfieri.
“I am very well, I have started working again, and I like it,” he recalled the pope adding.
Four days before his death, he met prisoners in Rome and wished he could have washed their feet.
“This time, I didn’t manage to do it,” the pontiff reportedly said.
‘Take care of the abandoned embryos’ was another of Francis’s final desires, according to Alfieri.
During his pontificate, the late pope maintained that there was no evidence to support the use or destruction of embryos for scientific research.
In 2017, he said, “No ends, even noble in themselves, such as a predicted utility for science, for other human beings or for society, can justify the destruction of human embryos.”
Alfieri said he said this in January.
He was clear: “They are life, we cannot allow them to be used for experimentation or to be lost. It would be murder,” he said.
“We were evaluating, also with the Ministry of Health, among the various options, how to release them for adoption but there was no time for the Pope to make his decision effective.”
“My commitment now will be, if the conditions are right, to make this wish come true.”
He promised to bring up the matter with Orazio Schillaci, the Italian Health Minister.
Following the Vatican’s decision to forgo closing St. Peter’s Basilica overnight, tens of thousands of people are lining up to pay their respects to Pope Francis.
Ahead of the late pope’s funeral this weekend, large crowds flocked to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, standing in line for hours to see him in his open casket.
Following Francis’s remains being moved to St. Peter’s Basilica yesterday, waves of mourners patiently waited in line, with the line winding through the square to the building’s Holy Door.
Vatican media said that since Pope Francis was laid out in an open casket yesterday in preparation for his funeral on Saturday, about 50,000 people have flocked to the basilica “to pay homage to him.”
Among those who paid their respects to Francis yesterday was Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose photos depict her respectfully approaching his coffin barely hours after praising him in her speech to Parliament.
In addition to praising Francis’s strength and grit to “go against the current,” Meloni revealed with lawmakers some personal advice he gave her: “Never lose your sense of humor.” She also commended Francis’ ability to speak freely with everyone despite his high status.
“With him you were at ease, you could open up, without filters, without fear of being judged,” she added. “He could see your soul, lay it bare.”
St. Peter’s was supposed to close at midnight on Wednesday and Thursday, but it stayed open all night so that more people might pay their respects.
The wait seems to have grown to three or four hours by late last evening. According to a crowd control official, the wait time was more like five hours.
However, after taking photographs next to the late pontiff’s open casket, some of the attendees have incited anger.
One picture on Instagram showed a woman grinning at the camera while the Pope, about ten feet behind her, clutched his rosary.
Swarms of people surrounded the plain coffin, holding their phones above their heads, according to official photos taken on the first day from the lying-in-state.
The Pope’s body was surrounded by a sea of screens, some of which even had extended selfie sticks in an attempt to get the best picture.
A Vatican source said, “It would be good if people could try and remember where they are and have a little respect but there’s little else that can be done.”
The Prince of Wales, a prospective leader of the Church of England, has announced that he will be attending on behalf of the King, and large crowds are anticipated for the funeral on Saturday in St. Peter’s Square.
Along with other world leaders and dignitaries, such as US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Irish Premier Michael Martin, and Irish President Michael D. Higgins, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will also be there.
In contrast to the custom of papal burials in St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis will be laid to rest at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major, per the late pope’s desires.
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