The Vatican says Pope Francis has continued making decisions and is improving, but his two-week hospital stay poses uncomfortable, unanswered questions about Vatican decision-making.

Cardinal Baldassare Reina led the daily vigil Thursday in St. Peter’s Square to pray for Pope Francis. The pope continued to improve from double pneumonia, the Vatican said, though doctors said he needs more days of “clinical stability” before they revise their guarded prognosis.

Gandhi’s Scant Garb Bars Audience with Pope.” So read the headline of a New York Times report, from December 13, 1931, that the Vatican had cancelled a meeting between Pius XI and “the Indian nationalist leader” because the Pope thought he might be criticized “if he received the visitor in his usual scanty clothing.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the results of tests conducted in recent days and Monday indicate the pope is suffering from a “polymicrobial respiratory tract infection” that has necessitated a further change in his drug therapy.

The Vatican said the 88-year-old pope once again slept well during the night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.

The pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, is still receiving high flows of supplemental oxygen to help remove fluid from his lungs.

Catholics in Buenos Aires attended Mass on Sunday to pray for Pope Francis' recovery. (Video by Cristian Kovadloff)

He saw an opportunity to turn a signature Kentucky product, and his access to Pope Francis as a papal missionary of mercy, into a way to help those in need by auctioning off bourbon bottles signed by the pope.

Pope Francis was in critical but stable condition Tuesday as he worked from the hospital while battling double pneumonia, and the Vatican

For those who recognize Christ as the savior, death is not an end or a form of "annihilation," Pope Francis wrote in his general audience catechesis. It is a kind of "sister" that introduces the faithful departed to true life.