VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis returned home to the Vatican on Sunday after more than five weeks in hospital with pneumonia, taking time before leaving to thank well-wishers for their support.
Looking tired and worn, the 88-year-old Catholic leader waved to a crowd outside Rome's Gemelli hospital from a balcony, the first time he has been seen in public since he was admitted on February 14.
"Thank you, everyone," a weak-sounding Francis said into a microphone, seated in a wheelchair, as hundreds of pilgrims chanted his name.
He waved his hands from his lap, doing an occasional thumbs-up sign, and drew laughter when he noted, smiling: "I can see that woman with yellow flowers, well done."
Francis, who had bags under his eyes, was on the balcony for two minutes before being discharged from the hospital immediately afterwards.
The Argentine pontiff left by car wearing a cannula -- a plastic tube tucked into his nostrils which delivers oxygen -- an indication of the continued fragility of his health.
His doctor said Saturday that he will need "at least two months" of convalescence at his home in the Santa Martha guesthouse in the Vatican.
The pope was driven away in a white Fiat 500 L, initially heading to Santa Maria Maggiore, the Rome church where he stops to pray before and after trips.
There he left on the altar the bouquet of yellow roses he had spotted from his hospital balcony, that were given to him by Carmela Mancuso, a 72-year-old well-wisher.
Francis was then seen arriving back at the Vatican.
Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who visited the pontiff in hospital, she was "happy" at his return home, expressing on X her "affection and gratitude for his tireless commitment and his precious guidance".
This was the pope's fourth and longest hospital stay since becoming head of the world's almost 1.4 billion Catholics in 2013 -- and the most fraught.
Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, twice suffered "very critical" moments in the past month when his life was in danger, his doctors said, while stressing that he remained conscious.