Pope also says Angelus prayer

Vatican

Vatican: Pope also says Angelus prayer

Francis has been in hospital in Rome since Friday – according to official information about persistent bronchitis. He also has to do without the usual appearance of believers on St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis does not use the traditional Angelus prayer this Sunday due to a disease of the respiratory tract. The treating doctors had prescribed “absolute rest” to the 88 -year -old head of the Catholic Church, the Vatican said in the evening. Therefore, Francis will not speak the prayer either.

Usually the prayer is transferred from the Apostolic Palace to St. Peter’s Square every Sunday at 12 noon. The Pope then speaks from a window down to many thousands of believers. It was now speculated that the transmission from the Gemelli Clinic in the west could take place, where Francis has been treated since Friday.

According to the Vatican, there were no new complications. “Pope Francis had slept a quiet night and well,” said his spokesman Matteo Bruni. Later it was said that the Pope had no feverish seizures. Laboratory examinations would have resulted in an “improvement in some values”.

According to the Vatican, the Argentine native suffers from stubborn bronchitis, an infection of the airways. At the age of 88, Francis is now the second oldest Pope in history.

For more than a week, he had been to look at that health is increasingly being troubled by him. His voice broke away several times on public appointments. He hardly left his place of residence in the Vatican. According to press reports, doctors recommended that he go to the hospital last week. Only now was Francis convinced.

It is open how long the head of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide has to stay in the clinic. The Italian news agency Ansa reported on its environment that the stay could take until the middle of next week.

The pontiff has been creating the airways for several years in the winter months. Last winter, he said he had a strong pneumonia. To make matters worse, the upper part of the right lung wing was removed at a young age due to great cysts. In order to prevent infections from spreading, he is treated with cortisone under medical supervision in the cold season.

Due to problems with the knees and hips, Francis is now in a wheelchair in public appearances. The independent walk gives him great difficulties.

As the successor to Benedict XVI. has been in office since March 2013. Only Pope Leo XIII. became even older according to the records of the Vatican: the Italian died in 1903 at the age of 93. Francis “German predecessor, with a bourgeois name Joseph Ratzinger, was 95, but had resigned nine years before his death on New Year’s Eve 2022.