Pope Francis, 88, is suffering from bilateral pneumonia and continues to display a "complex" clinical picture, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, the fifth day of his hospitalization.

The 88-year-old Jesuit has been hospitalized since Friday at the Gemelli hospital in Rome for a "polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract", a new alert that raises concern about his declining health.

"The chest scan that the Holy Father underwent this afternoon (...) demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia that required additional drug treatment. Pope Francis is nevertheless in good spirits," the Vatican said in a medical bulletin Tuesday evening.

"The polymicrobial infection, which occurred in a context of bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis, and which required the use of cortisone-based antibiotic therapy, makes therapeutic treatment more complex," the press release states.

After initially clearing its schedule through Wednesday, the Vatican announced Tuesday the cancellation of its jubilee audience on Saturday, specifying that the pope would also not preside over Sunday's Mass.

At a midday press briefing, the Vatican spokesman said that the situation of the Argentine pontiff was stable.

Francis "woke up, had breakfast and devoted himself to reading some newspapers as he regularly does," Matteo Bruni said.

The Vatican said the pope received the Eucharist in the morning, before alternating during the day "rest, prayer and reading of texts."

-Frenetic pace-

Despite repeated health scares in recent years - hip problems, knee pain that requires him to use a wheelchair, operations, respiratory infections - Jorge Bergoglio has maintained a frenetic pace at the Vatican, to the great displeasure of his doctors who keep telling him to slow down.

His hospitalization, the fourth in less than four years, has revived questions about his fragile health, especially as it comes at the start of the Catholic Church's jubilee year, marked by a long list of events, many of which are presided over by the pope.

On Tuesday morning, in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican, faithful and tourists flocked under a cloudy sky, greeted by agents in green vests, responsible for directing the thousands of pilgrims for the 2025 Jubilee.

"I am a little worried about the Pope's health and I hope he will get better soon," Birgit Jungreuthmayer, 48, a Catholic Austrian tourist, told AFP. "I trust in the medical treatment of the doctors at the hospital and (...) I know they will do their best."

The Vatican has not said whether the pope will be able to preside over his traditional Angelus prayer on Sunday, which he had to forgo last weekend.

- "I continue" -

The Pope's health was on the front page of all the major Italian newspapers on Tuesday. "Pope Francis' hospitalization continues," headlined Il Corriere della Sera, which reviewed the very busy schedule of the previous days, stating that ten days of antibiotic and cortisone infusions had not been enough to cure him.

Before his hospitalization, the head of the Catholic Church, who had part of a lung removed when he was young, had indeed appeared weakened, his face swollen, his voice breathless, and had on several occasions delegated the reading of his speeches to his assistants.

Known for his strength of character, the Pope prefers to move forward, without slowing down or lightening his schedule, at the risk of putting his health to the test.

In September, he even made the longest trip of his pontificate, a 12-day journey to the confines of Asia and Oceania.

Since his election in 2013, the Pope has always left open the possibility of resigning from his office if his health prevented him from exercising his functions, like his predecessor Benedict XVI.

But in a book published in 2024, Francis assured that he had "no sufficiently serious reason to consider resigning." Resignation is a "distant possibility" that would only be justified in the event of "serious physical impediment," he wrote.

"I'm still going," he said in an autobiography published in January. "The reality is simply that I'm old."