ROME, Feb 24, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Rome's Gemelli hospital, where Pope Francis is being treated for pneumonia, is the favoured choice of pontiffs -- to the point of being dubbed "Vatican III" by John Paul II.

The 88-year-old Francis is on his fourth stay at to the Gemelli since 2021. He was admitted this time on February 14.

He previously had hernia surgery in June 2023, a respiratory infection in March 2023, and an operation on his colon in July 2021. 

Pope John Paul II, head of the Catholic church from 1978 until his death in 2005, was treated nine times at Gemelli -- Rome's largest hospital -- and spent a total of 153 days there.

He quipped that "Vatican number one" was St Peter's Square, number two was the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, and the Gemelli was number three.

John Paul II's repeated and prolonged stays caused the Vatican to create a mini-residence on site, a top-floor apartment accessed by a long corridor guarded by Italian and Vatican police.

According to Italian media, the suite is painted white and furnished simply. Besides the pope's room, there is a meeting room for medical staff, a kitchen, bathroom and rest areas.
 
There is also a small chapel.

- Greeted by statue -

The papal suite was created from scratch in May 1981 when John Paul II was shot and wounded in St Peter's Square by a Turkish man, Mehmet Ali Agca, and rushed to Gemelli.

He underwent an operation lasting almost six hours to remove a bullet from his abdomen. He was also shot in his hand and arm. Two women in the crowd were also wounded.

John Paul II returned to the hospital several times but died at the Vatican on April 2, 2005.

His statue looms over the entrance of the hospital, whose full name is the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli.

Francis's predecessor Pope Benedict XVI never stayed at Gemelli -- at least according to official announcements.

The German theologian resigned in 2013, citing declining physical and mental health. He lived in a monastery on the Vatican grounds and died there on December 31, 2022, aged 95.

Agostino Gemelli, the hospital's namesake, was a Franciscan friar and psychologist who died in 1959. 

In 1921 he founded the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, now considered the largest Catholic university in Europe. 

The Gemelli hospital, opened in 1964, is part of the university.