Pope Francis has written and spoken at length about sickness, aging and death, and personally directed that his doctors provide the fairly detailed daily updates that have punctuated his own battle with pneumonia. On Monday, they reported good news: Francis was no longer in imminent danger of death but needed to remain hospitalized for several more days to receive treatment. The 88-year-old pope is merely responding to the sometimes morbid interest in the health of popes over centuries, and is making his own the somewhat-mixed legacy of St. John Paul II. The Polish pope suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and his decline was on public view for years.