A week after his operation, Pope Francis showed himself to the public on the balcony of the clinic on Sunday.
Rome - Exactly one week ago Pope Francis had a planned intervention, now he held the traditional Angelus prayer on a balcony in front of the public on Sunday.
The head of the Catholic Church held the traditional prayer from a balcony on the top floor of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in front of a large crowd of believers who had gathered in front of the hospital.
Pope Francis shows himself a week after the operation - prayer on the balcony of the clinic
Pope Francis emphasized the importance of good public health.
"We must all be committed to this, because it serves everyone and demands everyone's contribution," he said.
On Sunday before, doctors at the hospital had removed part of the 84-year-old's colon in a planned procedure.
According to
Vatican News,
there is a hospital room on the top floor of the ten-story building in northern Rome, which is reserved especially for the Pope.
For Francis it was the first stay there in his pontificate, which has now lasted more than eight years.
Predecessor John Paul II. “Regular” in the clinic - Pope Francis went to the clinic for the first time
His predecessor John Paul II (1979-2005), however, was a "regular guest". Pope John Paul II was operated on there a total of ten times, the first time after the assassination attempt in 1981. John Paul himself described the Gemelli Clinic as “Vatican number three”, after St. Peter's Square and the papal summer residence Castel Gandolfo.
On Sunday, Francis also remembered Haiti, where President Jovenel Moïse was murdered last week and his wife was seriously injured. He joins the appeal of the country's bishops to lay down their arms. "I am close to the people of Haiti and I hope that the spiral of violence will end," he said.