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Thou­sands of peo­ple gath­ered in St. Pe­ter’s Square to pray for an ail­ing Pope Fran­cis, ex­press­ing sor­row for his suf­fer­ing, hope for his re­cov­ery and grat­i­tude for his ef­forts to steer the Catholic Church in new di­rec­tions.

The 88-year-old Fran­cis has pneu­mo­nia in both lungs and re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion de­spite show­ing a slight im­prove­ment af­ter 11 days in the hos­pi­tal. The Vat­i­can said ear­ly on Tues­day that he had “slept well, all night.”

As Car­di­nal Pietro Parolin, the Vat­i­can’s No. 2, led prayers for 45 min­utes on a chilly, rainy night Mon­day, the faith­ful fin­gered rosary beads while hop­ing for Fran­cis’ re­cov­ery. The Vat­i­can is­sued a dose of op­ti­mism ear­li­er in the evening, de­liv­er­ing a more up­beat health bul­letin than in re­cent days.