VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis visited Rome's main prison Thursday and met with dozens of inmates as he kept an Easter season appointment to spend Holy Thursday among the least fortunate, even as he continues recovering from a life-threatening bout of pneumonia.

The motorcade carrying Francis entered the Regina Caeli prison in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood just before 3 p.m. and left around 20 minutes later after Francis met with around 70 inmates. It's a prison Francis has visited before to perform the annual Holy Thursday ritual of washing the feet of 12 people to re-enact Christ's gesture of humble service of washing the feet of 12 apostles before his crucifixion.

“Every time I enter one of these places, I ask myself: ‘Why them and not me?’” Francis told reporters outside the prison in his first off-the-cuff comments since he got sick.

The fact that the 88-year-old pope kept the traditional Holy Thursday appointment, when he is under doctors' orders to take it easy and avoid crowds, was a clear sign of the importance he places on prison ministry and the need for priests to serve those most on the margins. That is all the more true during the 2025 Holy Year, which both opened and will close with special papal events for prison inmates.

Francis is expected to make at least some other Easter-time appearances over the coming days, even as cardinals will preside in his place during Holy Week's busy liturgical events. He made a surprise cameo at the end of Palm Sunday Mass last weekend and in recent days has made some unannounced visits — including one in which he wasn’t dressed in his papal white cassock — to pray in St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Mary Major basilica across town.

By all indications he is continuing to improve after his five-week hospital stay and is slowly resuming some of his normal activities. In recent outings, including on Thursday, he has been seen without the nasal tubes that provide supplemental oxygen and Vatican officials say he is increasingly less reliant on the therapy.

Asked Thursday how he was doing and marking this year's Easter season, Francis said in a weak voice: “I am living it as I can.”

Francis received medical workers who treated him

On Wednesday, Francis held his first formal group audience since returning to the Vatican on March 23, meeting with the medical staff of the Gemelli hospital who cared for him during his 38-day stay. Gathered in a Vatican audience hall, Francis thanked the 70-plus doctors, nurses and administrators and asked them for their continued prayers.

“Thank you for everything you did,” Francis said, his voice still labored but seemingly stronger as he continues respiratory and physical therapy.

He gave special thanks to the rector of Gemelli’s affiliated Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Elena Beccalli, whom he praised for her strong leadership. “When women command, things go well,” he said in his longest public remarks since his hospitalization.

Francis has delegated the demanding Holy Week liturgical celebrations to hand-picked cardinals, but the Vatican says the pope himself composed the meditations that will be read aloud by others during the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession on Friday night at Rome’s Colosseum.

The Holy Thursday Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, for example, during which the oils used in liturgical rituals throughout the year were blessed, was celebrated by the retired head of the Vatican’s patrimony office, Cardinal Domenico Calcagno. Friday’s solemn commemoration before the crucifixion of Christ was assigned to Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, who heads the Vatican office in charge of eastern rite Catholics. Easter Sunday was assigned to the retired administrator of St. Peter’s, Cardinal Angelo Comastri.

It remains to be seen how Francis will handle Easter Sunday’s traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (Latin for “to the city and the world”) speech and blessing after Mass. Normally the pope delivers a sometimes lengthy discourse on the state of the world from the loggia of St. Peter’s, and then imparts a special blessing to the faithful in the piazza below. In theory someone else could read the speech while Francis could impart the blessing.

Francis was admitted to Gemelli on Feb. 14 with bronchitis that quickly developed into a life-threatening case of double pneumonia. Upon his release March 23, doctors prescribed two months of convalescence at the Vatican with daily respiratory and physical therapy to improve his breathing and vocal function. With time, they have predicted he will be able to resume his normal activities.

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