Pope Francis returned home to the Vatican on Sunday after more than five weeks in hospital with pneumonia, taking time before leaving to thank well-wishers for their support.

Looking tired and worn, the 88-year-old Catholic leader waved to a crowd outside Rome’s Gemelli hospital from a balcony, the first time he has been seen in public since he was admitted on February 14.

“Thank you, everyone,” a weak-sounding Francis said into a microphone, seated in a wheelchair, as hundreds of pilgrims chanted his name.

He waved his hands from his lap, doing an occasional thumbs-up sign, and drew laughter when he noted, smiling: “I can see that woman with yellow flowers, well done.”

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Francis, who had bags under his eyes, was on the balcony for two minutes before being discharged from the hospital immediately afterwards.

The Argentine pontiff left by car wearing a cannula — a plastic tube tucked into his nostrils which delivers oxygen — an indication of the continued fragility of his health.

His doctor said on Saturday that he will need “at least two months” of convalescence at his home in the Santa Martha guesthouse in the Vatican.

Pilgrims gathered on Sunday outside the Gemelli, where he was treated in a special suite on the 10th floor, and expressed their delight at seeing him in person.

His appearance “just filled me and I think many of the people who are here with a great sense of joy,” Larry James Kulick, a bishop from the US state of Pennsylvania told AFP.