Pope Francis waved from a hospital balcony in Rome in his first public appearance for five weeks after suffering from severe pneumonia.
The 88-year-old pontiff appeared in a wheelchair and offered a Sunday blessing from Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where a huge crowd gathered at the main entry piazza, including patients wheeled outside to see him in person.
The Pope is recovering from a severe illness that twice threatened his life and raised the prospect of a papal resignation or funeral.
After saying goodbye to staff, the Pope left the hospital in a Fiat 500 on his way to the Vatican to begin at least two months of rehabilitation and convalescence. He waved from the closed window of the front seat and could be seen wearing a cannula.
Doctors have said he should refrain from meeting with big groups of people or exerting himself, but that eventually he should be able to resume all his normal activities.
His return home, after the longest hospitalisation of his 12-year papacy and the second-longest in recent papal history, brought relief to the Vatican and Catholic faithful who have been anxiously following 38 days of medical ups and downs.
Dr Rossella Russomando, a doctor from Salerno who didn’t treat the Pope but was at Gemelli on Sunday, said: “Today I feel a great joy.
“It is the demonstration that all our prayers, all the rosary prayers from all over the world, brought this grace.”
In a written missive, the Pope called for an “immediate” end to Israeli strikes on the Gaza strip, and for the resumption of dialogue for the release of hostages and a “definitive ceasefire”.
“I ask that the weapons be silenced immediately and that the courage be found to resume dialogue so that all the hostages can be freed and a definitive ceasefire reached,” he wrote in an Angelus prayer that was published on Sunday.
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