Pope Francis, batting double pneumonia in hospital, remained stable throughout the day on Tuesday and did not have any new respiratory crises, the Vatican said.

Pope Francis is off mechanical breathing intervention and is alert, the Vatican's latest update says.

Doctors extracted “copious” amounts of mucus from his lungs. They put him on a noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask to help him breathe and he slept with it through the night, but was stable enough on Tuesday morning to use just high flows of supplemental oxygen delivered by a nasal tube.