Pope Francis spent final day working, despite doctors' orders

After spending more than five weeks in hospital for a bout of double pneumonia, doctors told Pope Francis he needed two months' rest - but the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics kept working right to the end. Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Francis who also wrote a book with the pope in 2020, said the pontiff "listened carefully to his doctors' advice but his first priority was his mission of presence." Father Gabriel Romanelli, from the Gaza parish the pope called regularly during the Israel-Hamas war, told Vatican News: "The pope called us for the last time on Saturday evening, shortly before the Easter Vigil began, while we were praying the Rosary.