Pope Francis is feeling better and some of his upcoming commitments have been confirmed and others have been postponed in order to “dedicate the desired time and energy to them,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni revealed this Monday.
Francis will thus be able to make his long-awaited visit to COP28 next weekend, which will take place in Dubai, marking the first time that the Holy See is an active participant in the talks against the climate crisis and not just an agent of moral suasion. .
The Pope’s audiences this Saturday were canceled after the Vatican announced that the pontiff was showing flu-like symptoms.
This Sunday, his Angelus prayer was recited in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta residence, where he lives, inside the Vatican, instead of on the balcony of the Apostolic Palace, the ANSA agency reported.
During the prayer, the 86-year-old Argentine revealed that he was suffering from lung inflammation and asked one of his advisors to read his speech.
“The Pope’s condition is good and stable, he has no fever and his respiratory situation is clearly the best,” the Vatican spokesman said on Monday.
“To help the Pope’s recovery, some important commitments scheduled for the coming days have been postponed so that he can dedicate the desired time and energy to them. Others, of an institutional nature or easier to support given his current state of health, have been maintained,” he added.
Bruni stressed that the tests carried out on Saturday “ruled out pneumonia, but showed lung inflammation that causes some breathing difficulties.”
The spokesman noted that the Pope is receiving intravenous antibiotics to treat the inflammation.
The Pope’s weekly general audience on Wednesdays at the Vatican will take place as usual, the Holy See assured this Monday.
It will be Francis’ first direct meeting with the faithful since Saturday.
The Pope has had several health problems in recent years and months.
Most recently, he was “a little constipated” earlier this month, but continued with all his commitments as planned.
Francis’ health has been a topic of debate since he made it clear that he would be willing to resign if illness prevented him from doing his job, as his predecessor Benedict XVI surprisingly did in February 2013.
Regarding his next trip to Dubai, Francisco highlighted this Monday that he believes the conference could represent a turning point in the energy transition.
“If we believe in the capacity of human beings to transcend our small interests and think on a large scale, we cannot stop dreaming that #COP28 will lead to an acceleration of the energy transition,” Pope Francis stressed through the social network (formerly Twitter).
The United Nations has been insisting on the need to immediately adopt “spectacular measures” to avoid further global warming, when the planet is heading towards 2.9ºC of warming.
To avoid a 3°C rise in temperatures by the end of the century, all countries will have to reduce emissions well beyond current pledges, cutting 42% of emissions by 2030 if they do not want to exceed 1.5° C, a goal assumed in 2015 in the Paris Agreement on emissions reduction, indicates a UN report.
COP28 is held between November 30 and December 12 in Dubai, with the ambition of carrying out the first global evaluation of the Paris Agreement.
Source: TSF
