<\/p>\n
Pope Francis left Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Sunday following a five-week stay to be treated for pneumonia, making his first public appearance since February 14 by waving to well-wishers from a balcony moments before he was discharged.<\/p>\n
Francis, 88, went to hospital on February 14 with a severe respiratory infection that became the most serious health crisis of his 12-year papacy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The pope’s doctors said on Saturday it would still take “a lot of time” for his aging body to fully heal, and said they had prescribed the pontiff a further two months of rest at the Vatican.<\/p>\n
A car carrying Francis left the hospital shortly after noon on Sunday, and was accompanied through Rome by a convoy of police vehicles.<\/p>\n
The pope appeared on a balcony at the hospital just before leaving. Using a wheelchair, as he has for several years, he smiled and waved at a group of well-wishers gathered outside.<\/p>\n
The pope, whose face looked swollen, appeared only for a few moments. He spoke briefly, with a feeble voice, to thank one of the members of the crowd below, who had brought yellow flowers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Francis had only been seen by the public once before during his hospital stay, in a photo the Vatican released last week, showing the pontiff at prayer in a hospital chapel.<\/p>\n
In the moments before the pontiff’s appearance on Sunday, the crowd of hundreds of well-wishers called out for the pope, chanting “Francis, Francis, Francis”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n
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Vatican City: Pope Francis left Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Sunday following a five-week stay to be treated for pneumonia, making his first public appearance since February 14 by waving to well-wishers from a balcony moments before he was discharged. Francis, 88, went to hospital on February 14 with a severe respiratory infection that became the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}