The Vatican, though, made alternative plans for Ash Wednesday next week, making clear Francis still had a long road ahead. Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, a Vatican official and former vicar of Rome, will preside over the March 5 ceremony and procession that inaugurates the church's solemn Lenten season leading up to Easter in April.

The Vatican said that the pontiff had pneumonia in both lungs and that he “continued to present a complex picture.”

The Vatican said Pope Francis has the "onset of bilateral pneumonia," and that tests, a chest X-ray and the pope's clinical condition present a "complex picture."