The Pope did not go to Ariccia this afternoon, as was planned, for the spiritual exercises. "Unfortunately the cold forces me not to participate this year, I will follow the meditations from here," he said at the Angelus asking for prayers for the Lenten retreat of the Curia. Therefore, the Pope will not be physically at the House of the Divine Master, but will follow the spiritual exercises from Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican.
Continue to have colds and coughs. Several times, during the Angelus, he had to stop precisely because of the cough. It is from Thursday that the Pope, due to this indisposition, remained in Santa Marta, where he continued to celebrate mass and to have meetings, instead renouncing appointments outside the Vatican and also those on the agenda in the Apostolic Palace.
Meanwhile, the alert for the coronavirus is rising around the Vatican and the first test today was precisely for the Angelus. In fact, new provisions have been put in place for controls. To access St. Peter's Square, the security forces made sure that the rows were more orderly at the entrances. The pilgrims were checked one at a time, ensuring a distance of several meters between the person being checked and the people behind them. The goal was to avoid gatherings and crowds. After the first filter there was a second one, as usual at the metal detectors under the colonnade, where the employees are not currently equipped with a thermo-scanner.
