by Elise Ann Allen

ROME (Crux) — An old saying about the Vatican states that “the pope is never sick until he’s dead,” and this position has held true in various cycles of papal health crises throughout recent history, until now, with Pope Francis’ current hospital stay.

Throughout his nearly month-long hospital stay, one of the most noteworthy elements of the ordeal has been the unprecedented level of detail provided in his daily medical bulletins.

Since the pope was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital Feb. 14 for treatment of bronchitis, with doctors later diagnosing a complex respiratory infection and double pneumonia, the Vatican’s level of transparency about his condition has been surprising to many longtime observers who recall how, even 20 years ago, this was almost unthinkable.

Vatican medical bulletins, compiled by the medical team treating Pope Francis and approved by the pontiff himself for publication, have been up front with his diagnosis and the occasional crisis that has arisen.

Uncomfortable details — such as the pope experiencing a respiratory crisis in which he inhaled his own vomit and had bronchial spasms due to a buildup of mucus, on each occasion requiring doctors to suction his respiratory tract — are novel and have surprised observers more accustomed to secrecy about such matters.

Papal health is a subject that Vatican officials have traditionally treated with denial and obfuscation.

On Aug. 19, 1914, for instance, the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published a stinging editorial condemning unnamed commentators who had suggested the day before that Pope Pius X was suffering from a cold.

In less than 24 hours, he was dead.

More recently, even though speculation began to surface in the mid-1990s that St. John Paul II could be suffering from the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, the Vatican never officially confirmed the ailment until shortly before the Polish pope’s death in 2005.

Even in Pope John Paul’s later years, the effort to make him seem stronger than he actually was continued.

This is evidenced by a now-famous story among Vatican watchers in which, after St. John Paul underwent a tracheotomy in late February 2005, a Vatican spokesman at the time claimed the next day that the pope had eaten 10 cookies, creating an awkward situation for physicians who had to set the record straight; a patient with a tracheal tube, they said, would not be in a position to swallow water, let alone anything solid.

Needless to say, the media at the time didn’t exactly swallow the story either.

This time around, however, media have been satisfied that the information on the pope’s condition provided by his medical team at Gemelli Hospital is true, largely because of the specific details that have been put out, including admissions of respiratory crises, blood transfusions, and the fact that he spent several days in critical condition.

This novel transparency on papal health for an institution stubbornly resistant to change is largely thanks to Pope Francis himself, who personally authorizes all of the information on his condition that gets published.

Dr. Sergio Alfieri, director of the medical surgical department of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital and head of the pope’s medical team there, said in a Feb. 21 press conference that it was Pope Francis who made the decision to be transparent about his clinical status, and who chose to be upfront with the daily developments.

The pope’s medical bulletins, Alfieri said, are a product of the joint observations of the various doctors and specialists treating the pope and are approved by Pope Francis personally before being put out by the Holy See Press Office.

In the course of the pope’s nearly month-long hospitalization, medical bulletins have been published almost nightly, with the exception of recent days, as doctors considered Pope Francis’ condition to be stable enough to switch to releasing bulletins every other night.

This decision by Pope Francis was likely in large part a move to avoid rampant speculation and fake news about his health.

St. John Paul once famously said, when asked how his health was, that he didn’t know, as he had not read the papers yet.

Every papal health scare is a breeding ground for speculation, and this one for Pope Francis has been no exception. Early on, there were rumors that he had already died, and the Vatican was keeping it a secret, and a few days later headlines circulated saying he had only 72 hours to live.

Pope Francis has far surpassed that window, and in fact appears to be making a slow, but steady recovery, with doctors Monday choosing to lift his “guarded” prognosis, meaning they consider him to be out of immediate danger, despite a complex clinical status.

His decision to publish such detailed information about his condition is also a message to the world and to his own institution that he is not gone yet and that when the time comes, he will only be pronounced dead by doctors, not the media or his own curia.

An audio recording thanking the world for their prayers, which Pope Francis recorded from his hospital room, and which was played on loudspeakers March 6 to faithful gathered to pray the rosary for him in St. Peter’s Square, was also a signal that while down, he certainly wasn’t out.

For many, while difficult to hear the pontiff’s labored and breathless speech, it was comforting to hear his voice for the first time in three weeks.

This option for transparency on the part of Pope Francis marks yet another novelty for a reform-minded pope happy to shake up the curial institution and do things his own way, and it assures that he is the one controlling the narrative about his health.

He made a point of proving this point early on when he chose to send a message to his own in the curia that he was still in charge by bypassing his own system to organize a meeting at Gemelli Hospital with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who later released a statement remarking on the pope’s good form and humor.

Pope Francis has always been recognized, by critics and supporters alike, as a keen and savvy strategist, and his actions and decisions from his private suite on the 10th floor of the Gemelli Hospital have proven, once again, that even at his weakest and most vulnerable, he is still very much in charge.