Pope Francis: Doctor comments on hours before his death

After the death of Pope Francis (1936-2025), his treating doctor said Italian media towards the last hours of the Holy Father. Among other things, Sergio Alfieri (58) reports how the head of the Catholic Church spent the Easter weekend and that he wanted to do without artificial ventilation.

He last saw Pope Francis on Saturday. “I can say that he was doing very well, he told me myself,” said Alfieri “I brought him a dark cake as he likes it, and we talked for a while.” The Pope said that he was doing very well and that he started working again because he would like it. Alfieri knew that Francis would donate the blessing “Urbi et orbi”, “and we agreed to meet on Monday”.

For the doctor, the Pope’s decision seems logical shortly before his death: “It is as if he decided to do everything he has to do shortly before the end. Just like on Sunday, when he assumed the proposal of his nurse Massimiliano Strappetti, going across the pitch in the crowd.”

The Pope also hugged the plan to meet all the people who had treated him in the Gemelli Clinic on Wednesday after Easter. Today the doctor believes that Francis “had the feeling of having to do a few things before he died”.

On Easter Monday around 5:30 a.m., he received a call from Strappetti, said Alfieri: “The Holy Father is very sick, we have to go back to Gemelli.” Twenty minutes later he arrived in the Pope Residence Santa Marta. “I went into his room and his eyes were open. I made sure that he had no breathing problems and tried to speak to him, but he did not answer. He did not react to stimuli, not even painful. At that moment I realized that I couldn’t do anything anymore, he was in a coma.”

They decided against transport to the hospital, otherwise you would have risked that the Pope die while driving. Everyone knew that Francis wanted to die at home. A little later the Pope died.

The doctor also reported that Francis explicitly asked to do without artificial ventilation in the event of a case. The Pope died of the consequences of a stroke on Easter Monday at the age of 88.

Francis will be buried next Saturday. The funeral service will start around 10:00 a.m. Hundreds of thousands are expected on St. Peter’s Square. Several German TV stations broadcast the ceremony. The first live will report between 9:50 a.m. and around 1:00 p.m. RTL and NTV will also be there live in the joint special program “Farewell to Pope Francis”.