For the second day in a row, Pope Francis, who is suffering from a cold, suspended his public audiences scheduled for today, Feb. 28. But “he celebrated Mass this morning and as usual, greeted those present,” Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office, told journalists.
To counteract any concerns, however, the Vatican spokesman said the meetings Francis had scheduled to hold at Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where he lives, “continued in the regular way,” just as happened yesterday, when he met a delegation from the Global Catholic Climate Movement.
Francis was scheduled to address participants today at the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, but instead his prepared talk was read by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the president of the academy. Yesterday, he had to skip his annual meeting with the clergy of Rome, and then his speech was read by his vicar for the Rome diocese, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis.
On Ash Wednesday, the 83-year-old pope held a public audience in St. Peter’s Square. The pope had been holding the weekly Wednesday audience in the Paul VI audience hall, but for some reason, Vatican officials decided to hold it in the square. That same afternoon, Francis went to the Aventine Hill to lead the Ash Wednesday liturgy, which also involved a short open-air procession, and then celebrated Mass in the church of Santa Sabina, where he was seen using a handkerchief to clear his nose several times.
His condition, described by the Vatican spokesman as “a slight indisposition,” caused some concern because of the spread of the coronavirus in Italy, where some 650 persons have caught the virus and 17 (mostly elderly people) have died from it. But no cases of the virus have been reported in the Vatican so far, and nobody has suggested that the pope has been infected. It is presumed that the Vatican doctors have administered the test for coronavirus to the pope, but there is no official confirmation of this from the Vatican.
On Sunday afternoon, March 1, Pope Francis and senior Vatican officials are scheduled to go for week-long spiritual exercises in a retreat house at Ariccia, in the countryside, about an hour’s drive south of Rome. It remains to be seen whether Francis will be well enough to participate.
