The head of the Vatican press office, Matteo Bruni, said in an email that although a CT scan ruled out pneumonia, medical professionals had implanted a cannula to provide antibiotics. A condition the pope had almost fifty years ago caused him to lose part of a lung.
The first pope from the Americas, Francis,
will be 87 next month. He has struggled with illness for years, missing many appointments and using a wheelchair when he appears in public. However, Bruni made it plain in his statement that “the Pope’s respiratory situation is clearly improving, he has no fever, and his condition is good and stationary.”Read more
While Francis stayed sitting behind the pope, his assistant, Father Paolo Braida, read the pope’s regular Sunday address. The pope seemed ill, gasping for air at one point, and looked exhausted.
Greetings, sisters and brothers. Greetings on Sunday. Francis added in the statement, “I have this lung inflammation issue, therefore I can’t appear at the window today.
According to Bruni, certain “important engagements” had been postponed, but the easier-to-attend-to or internal administrative activities will still go on.
He met Paraguay’s president, Santiago Peña Palacios, at the Vatican on Monday as planned.
Throughout the Israel-Gaza conflict, the pope has continued to be a prominent voice, urging a humanitarian truce on many occasions. “We pray that they all may be as rapidly as possible and that more humanitarian aid arrives in Gaza and that they insist on dialogue,” his statement on Sunday said. Peace in Ukraine was also urged in the message.
On Saturday, the Vatican said that the pope’s audience had to be postponed due to a “mild flu.”
In June of this year, Francis had surgery to correct a hernia and remove inconvenient scars from earlier procedures. Upon being asked how he was by a reporter as he was leaving the hospital, he said, “I’m still alive.”
Due to intestinal constriction, he had a 13-inch part of his gut removed in 2021.
