The day before Pope Francis left the hospital last month, after 38 days of treatment for double pneumonia, his doctors held a press conference. They said his recovery would require at least two months in convalescence at his residence in the Vatican. He should not meet with groups of people, and particularly not with children, to avoid viruses and other infections. 

It hasn’t worked out that way. 

For the first two weeks after his release, following a brief appearance on the balcony of his hospital room on the day of his departure, the Pope stayed out of the public eye. Then, on April 6, during the Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers, he showed up in St. Peter’s Square at the end of Sunday Mass. He wore the nasal cannulas that he uses to take oxygen and looked weary but cheerful, his voice strained as he wished everyone a happy Sunday. The appearance, which the Vatican Press Office had broadly hinted at ahead of time, raised hopes that he would join if only briefly in at least one of the liturgies for the Paschal Triduum or Easter. 

The Pope’s private meeting with the British king and queen three days later, after their official visit to the Vatican had been called off, was another sign that things were getting back to normal earlier than expected. A photo showed Pope Francis shaking hands with Queen Camilla.

But that was no preparation for what happened the next day, when the Pope showed up in his wheelchair in St. Peter’s Basilica. The images were so extraordinary, some outlets hesitated to publish them out of an initial concern that they might be fake. 

In a video, Pope Francis appears without his cassock or zucchetto skullcap, wearing black pants and covered with a striped garment that looks like a blanket or poncho. He greets and shakes hands with a child. The Pope’s attire, and that of two of his attendants in shirtsleeves, suggests that the visit was a spur-of-the-moment outing.

It’s a remarkable glimpse of a pope without his regalia, comparable to the sight of St. John Paul II in his hospital bed after his shooting in 1981, but even more startling since in this case the Pope is inside the Vatican. Much of the discussion of the episode on social media focused on the Pope’s attire, with some expressing disapproval at the lapse in protocol. Less noted was his contact with strangers. In a still photo posted on social media, he also greets a young couple with a baby. 

By now it was clear that the Pope had decided to flout his doctors’ orders. He followed up with two more public appearances over the next three days, including a visit to Rome’s Basilica of Saint Mary Major, where he prayed before the icon of the Virgin Mary, Salus Populi Romani, to which he has a well-known devotion. 

When Pope Francis showed up in St. Peter’s Square at the end of Palm Sunday Mass, stopping his wheelchair to shake hands with several people and give sweets to children, his appearance, though unannounced ahead of time, was not much of a surprise and seemed almost routine. His voice was stronger, and he was not wearing tubes for oxygen.

In retrospect, all of this was predictable. During the period of COVID restrictions, Pope Francis himself hardly ever wore a mask, even though that was required of Vatican employees, and he frequently shook hands with people at public events. One of his Jesuit confreres recently told me that members of their order traditionally look askance at vigilant care for one’s bodily health. Maybe it’s an inheritance from their 16th-century origins as intrepid missionaries in uncharted lands. 

It’s also obvious to anyone who has observed Pope Francis over the years that he thrives on human contact. “I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others,” he said at the start of his pontificate, explaining his decision to reside in the Vatican guesthouse rather than the Apostolic Palace. 

At the same time, the Pope, who has described himself as an “impatient patient,” is hardly unique among the ailing, especially the elderly, in bridling at the directives of physicians.

“Of course Pope Francis shouldn’t follow the recommendations of his doctors. He’s 88 and in failing health, so he should enjoy the twilight of his life. What use are doctor’s recommendations at this point?” wrote Dominican Father Peter Totleben in response to a highly unscientific poll on this topic that I posted on the online platform X. “I mean, if I were the *Vicar of Christ on Earth* and I wanted to go pray at the Salus Populi Romani icon, then that's what I’m going to do, and I don’t care if the doctors want me to lie in bed all day.”

The same poll prompted Austen Ivereigh, a biographer and literary collaborator of Pope Francis, to write that the Pope is guided by a sense of duty that overrides self-preservation: “The prolongation of his life and his papacy is not his first priority, which is God’s mission entrusted to him. He has to listen to doc’s advice in order to stay alive to carry out that mission, but can’t compromise the mission in order to live longer. Discernment, ergo …”

That discernment might include a political calculation. After more than a month of invisibility, amid much speculation over who was really making decisions at the Vatican, Pope Francis may want to show not only that he is alive and kicking, but that he is the one making the calls. His appearance in casual attire, so obviously not the work of any handlers, was vivid proof that it is the Pope and no one else who decides what he does.

Meanwhile, the Pope continues to recover. On Tuesday, April 15, the Vatican spokesman said that his condition is improving both in terms of mobility and respiratory function.

As it happens, the results of my little poll were strongly in support of the Pope. Asked what they thought of his repeated forays outside of his residence, only 7% of respondents called the Pope’s behavior inspiring and 34% deemed it imprudent. But a solid majority — 59% — said it was his own business.

The verdict: Let Francis be Francis.