Pope Francis is spending short moments breathing on his own, the Vatican said on Monday, a day after publishing his first photo since hospitalization.

Pope Francis was hospitalized on Feb. 14, after suffering a bout of bronchitis for weeks and after increasingly finding it hard to speak publicly. His condition soon developed into double pneumonia. The 88-year-old pope,

Pope Francis, hospitalized for more than two weeks with pneumonia in both lungs, suffered two acute respiratory failures, requiring intervention, the Vatican says.