Concerns about the Pope's health have been renewed after the episode during the Palm Sunday celebrations, when the Pope
did not deliver the homily,
turning it into a long silence that quickly spread to the 60,000 faithful who attended the beginning of the Week. Santa.
Francis resumed the ceremony with the Creed, while the faithful attributed the silence to a decision by the pontiff of collective reflection in the silence and confusion of those who wondered what had happened.
The inevitable deduction was that of a mishap due to the problems suffered by the Argentine pontiff as a result of a persistent bronchial disorder that prevents him from giving speeches.
At the end of the ceremony the Pope faced the celebration of the Angelus and spoke briefly, condemning the “vile” terrorist attack that had caused 133 deaths in Moscow.
Francis then boarded the popemobile and toured St. Peter's Square for a long time greeting the faithful who cheered him.
The Vatican did not explain the Pope's silence
.
He simply clarified to the Vaticanists that since it had not been delivered, the homily was “non-existent.”
The Pope, in St. Peter's Square, after the Palm Sunday mass.
Photo: AP
Until now the Pope had faced his respiratory problems that make it difficult for him to give long speeches due to the coughing attacks he has suffered for months.
One of his collaborators is in charge of reading them.
Doubts and concerns
Sunday is the
only occasion in which the Pope gives up without resorting to the help of an
ecclesiastical collaborator, or giving explanations.
The main Italian newspaper,
Corriere della Sera
, asked what had happened on Palm Sunday in St. Peter's Square to none other than surgeon Sergio Alfieri, the specialist who operated on the Pope twice and is the director of Surgery at the Gemelli hospital, where The pontiff was hospitalized on different occasions.
“His silence at the end of the reading of the Gospel seemed eternal,” commented the Milan newspaper.
“Bergoglio has frequently had collaborators help him.
Now a new unforeseen event.
Was it the fault of bronchitis, because of the breathing difficulties that he suffers? "The journalist asked Alfieri.
"I don't find situations of concern," was the surgeon's dry response.
-What are the Pope's health conditions?
Three weeks ago he had a new total body CT scan a month after the previous one, on November 25.
Alfieri responded that “the Holy Father is well, compatible with his age and his episodes of respiratory difficulty in colder periods, even due to the pulmonary interventions he suffered many years ago.”
The surgeon refers to the operation that Jorge Bergoglio underwent at the age of 21 in Buenos Aires, in which
part of his right lung lobe was removed
.
The Pope has had to suspend speeches several times due to coughing fits.
Photo: AFP
Corriere
della Sera
asks the Pope's surgeon "why does he seem so fatigued lately?"
Alfieri responds that “he is a man with the responsibility of head of the Vatican State, who must make decisions.
When he looks out of that window (on Sundays, when he pronounces the Angelus at noon), he addresses one and a half billion Catholics, which does not happen to all of them at his age."
Dr. Alfieri also says that “the Holy Father has the head of a sixty-year-old man and manages to be ahead of us, still governing the Vatican State without problems, in the first person.
He has, as is normal, the ailments of those who are 87 years old, and who generally lead a quieter life and stay in his house watching television.
He can't afford it.
But he doesn't skip a commitment, or almost.”
There are many questions
that these words leave open.
Is the Pope in a position to face his next commitments, those of 2024?
Some answers will come these days, due to the intense commitments of Holy Week, which will culminate on Friday night with the pilgrimage to the Colosseum, and on Easter Sunday with the celebrations that conclude with the resurrection.
Francisco's agenda
The Pope says “
andiamo avanti
”, let's move forward.
On April 28 he plans a trip with many commitments to Venice, invited to the Biennale.
When asked how he is, Francisco invariably responds with a joke: “Well, I'm still alive.”
The reality is that the Pope
is not in serious health
but he cannot stop resizing his exhausting daily efforts.
He is the absolute ruler of the Church, which already forces him to an exhausting physical and intellectual effort.
He is also a head of state who maintains diplomatic relations with 180 states.
Practically every day he receives in audience people from all over the world, to whom he explains how he can see the bronchitis that fatigues him and that his doctors seek to control so that he does not damage his lungs.
In October of this year he has the most difficult job.
The second part of the Synod of Synods, the world assembly of bishops.
The first phase already took place in October 2023. But now the crucial problems of the Church must be faced, which includes the dangerous tournament between progressives and traditionalists.
It will be a great effort to control the confrontations.
In addition, Francis has several European trips planned, starting with Slovenia in June, which will include the Italian city of Triestre.
But the toughest test is a twelve-day trip,
scheduled for August, the longest trip of his eleven years of pontificate
, which will begin in Papua New Guinea and continue in Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.
They will continue East Timor and a fourth country is being studied, between the Solomon Islands and Singapore.
Francisco is
used to this hustle and bustle
.
He has already made 44 apostolic trips to 60 countries.
But the eleventh year, which began on the 13th of this month, the anniversary of his election to the pontificate, shows so many efforts that it is considered difficult for him to respect.
And there remains a possible trip to Argentina and Uruguay, another to Belgium and his presence, in December, at the solemn reopening of the Basilica of Notre Dame in Paris, which caught fire on April 15, 2019 and has been laboriously restored.
C.B.