Pope Francis described the pandemic on Wednesday as a tough "lady" to be obeyed, but both the Pontiff and most of his close aides did not wear masks in their general audience.
At the beginning of the audience held indoors, the Pope apologized to the people for not coming down from the marble stage.
“I'll stay up here.
I would very much like to come down and greet each one of you, but we have to keep our distance, ”he told a crowd of several hundred worshipers, almost all wearing masks.
"If I go down, immediately people will form groups ... And this goes against health, the precautions that we must take against this lady called covid, who is doing us a lot of harm," he said.
Swiss guards and official photographers did wear masks, but bishops and priests who greeted the pope up close took them off when they approached him.
Thirteen Swiss Guards and a resident of the guest house where the Pope lives have recently tested positive for COVID-19.
The Pope, who had part of a lung removed due to illness when he was young, has come under fire for not always wearing a mask in public.
On October 20, he wore a mask for several hours at a prayer service in Rome with other religious leaders, taking it off just to speak.
And last Saturday no one in the Pope's private library wore a mask when he had a meeting with the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and his delegation.
