Pope Francis during his visit to Papua New Guinea in September last year. Photo: TIZIANA FABI / AFP
There has been an outpouring of prayers across the Pacific for the Pope Francis.
The head of the Catholic Church, 88, remains in critical condition battling pneumonia and mild signs of kidney failure.
Pope Francis was admitted to Rome's Gemelli Hospital on 14 February after suffering from a respiratory infection for more than a week.
He has been the head of the Catholic Church since 2013 and is considered more progressive than his predecessors, engaging in climate change and migration issues.
The pope has not suffered acute respiratory episodes, the Vatican News reported said on Wednesday.
"The Holy Father's clinical condition remains critical but stable. No acute respiratory episodes have occurred, and hemodynamic parameters continue to be stable," according to The Holy See Press Office.'
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Theologian and senior lecturer Dr Nick Thompson told RNZ Pacific Waves that Pope Francis cares deeply about the Church's role in the Pacific.
Catholicism has never been a majority religion in the South Pacific in the way it is in Latin America or parts of Africa, where it is quite a big religion, he said.
"I think the biggest Catholic population per capita in the South Pacific is in places like Kiribati and New Caledonia.
"In Samoa, it's about 20 percent of the population, and here in Aotearoa, more like 9 percent, so it doesn't have a big presence."
He said the fact that he came to Papua New Guinea last year was a really significant sign of where his priorities were.
"He made a he made a big deal of Catholicism outside of Europe, having to take on the features of the culture and the language where it found itself."
Dr Thompson said Pope Francis has focused on global issues, like climate change, refugees, and all of the inequities that have been created by capitalism and distortions in world trade and the poverty.
"He was also very concerned about the way that global capitalism would move into places in the developing world, extract all the resources, and then just leave nothing behind," he said.
However, the most remarkable thing about Pope Francis that "everybody forgets" is that throughout the history of the papacy, the popes have either come from the Mediterranean world, from the Middle East or North Africa, or from Europe.
"For the last 800 to 900 years, they've all been from Western Europe. [Pope Francis] is the first one ever to come from outside Europe and to come from the Southern Hemisphere too: from Argentina.
"I think that's been the main feature of his pontificate: to focus on the globe."
