VATICAN CITY, Italy — Pope Francis' pontificate is not over and this decision he just made for what happens between now and 2028 will have an effect on the rest of (it), according to Massimo Faggioli, an American academic and professor at Villanova University who has followed the papacy closely for the past decade or so.

After last October's inconclusive Vatican summit, which yielded no concrete action on possible reforms, Francis had faced questions of whether his papacy was running out of steam even as Vatican officials had said at the time that Francis was still considering future changes and was waiting to receive a series of 10 expected reports about possible reforms this coming June.

The 88-year-old pontiff approved a new three-year process to consider reforms for the global Catholic Church, which many believe as a sign that the Argentine patriarch pontiff plans to continue on as pope despite his ongoing battle with double pneumonia.

Francis has extended the work of the Synod of Bishops, a signature initiative of his 12-year papacy, which has discussed reforms such as the possibility of women serving as Catholic deacons and better inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Church.

The synod, which held an inconclusive Vatican summit of bishops on the future of the Church last October, will now hold consultations with Catholics across the world for the next three years, before hosting a new summit in 2028.

Francis approved the new process for reforms on Tuesday from the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli (Gemelli University Hospital) in Rome's Lazio district, where he is being treated.

The pope has been in hospital for more than a month and his prolonged public absence has stoked speculation that he could choose to follow his predecessor Benedict XVI and resign from the papacy.

His friends and biographers have insisted, however, that he has no plans to step down. The approval of a new three-year process indicated he wants to continue on, despite his age and the possibility he might face a long, fraught road to recovery from pneumonia, given his age and other medical conditions.

"The Holy Father . . . is helping push the renewal of the Church toward a new missionary impulse. This is truly a sign of hope," Mario Grech, the official leading the reform process, told the Vatican media.
Francis, who has been pope since 2013, is widely seen as trying to open up the staid global Church to the modern world.

However, the pope's reform agenda has upset some Catholics, including a few senior cardinals. They have accused him of watering down the Church's teachings on issues such as same-sex marriage, divorce and remarriage.