Pope Francis' condition remains critical but stable and he was able to do some work while still in the hospital with double pneumonia, the Vatican said in a Tuesday evening update.

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis, hospitalized in critical condition with double pneumonia, was well enough to meet with the Vatican secretary of state to approve new decrees for saints and call a formal meeting to set the dates for their canonization, the Vatican said Tuesday.

A man revered by millions as the “doctor of the poor” will be the first saint from Venezuela. Pope Francis approved a decree Tuesday but did not set a date for the canonization of Dr.

Like his predecessors, Pope Francis was selected using an age-old method -- a system known as the Papal conclave.

A scholar of global Catholicism writes how Francis has opened the church to the outside world in ways no pope had done before.