A coughing Pope Francis told people gathered for the traditional Sunday blessing that he is canceling his participation in a week-long spiritual retreat in the Roman countryside because of a cold.
It is the first time in his seven-year papacy that he has missed the spiritual exercises that he initiated early in his pontificate to mark the start of each Lenten season. Such retreats are typical among Jesuits, an order to which he belongs.
The 83-year-old pontiff, who lost part of a lung to a respiratory illness as a young man, has canceled several official engagements this week as he battled an apparent cold.
Photo: AFP
His weekly appearance on Sunday from a window high above St Peter’s Square in Vatican City was the first time he has been seen publicly since Ash Wednesday last week, when he was seen coughing and blowing his nose during Mass.
Francis paused twice to cough on Sunday while addressing the crowd.
At the end, he asked for prayers for the spiritual retreat, adding: “Unfortunately a cold prevents me from participating this year. I will be following the meditation from here.”
The pope last week canceled two planned official audiences — formal affairs in the Apostolic Palace where Francis would have delivered a speech and greeted a great number of people at the end. Those were to include an audience with an international bioethics organization and with members of the Legion of Christ religious order.
Francis has never previously canceled so many official audiences or events in his papacy.
However, he was continuing to work from his residence at the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel and was receiving people in private, the Vatican press office said.
On Saturday, those private meetings were with the head of the Vatican’s bishops’ office, Francis’ ambassadors to Lebanon and France, and a Ukrainian archbishop.
He was to have left on Sunday for the retreat outside of Rome.
The Vatican has described Francis’ condition as “a slight illness,” without giving other details.
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