Many who know him said that Francis, driven by a sense of mission and a discipline born of his early training, essentially worked himself into the hospital.

Pope Francis was to be hospitalized for bronchitis treatment and necessary diagnostic testing after his Friday audiences, the Vatican said.

Pope Francis' condition remains critical but stable. He is in the hospital with bilateral pneumonia, according to the Vatican News. “The Holy Father's clinical condition remains critical but stable. There have been no acute respiratory episodes,