Pope Francis works from home for second day

February 28, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Vatican City, Feb 28, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis postponed his official audiences for Friday, but maintained his private meeting schedule at his residence in Vatican City. The decision comes after the pope was reported to have a “slight” illness by a Vatican spokesman.

Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni told journalists Feb. 28 that Pope Francis offered Mass in Santa Marta and “greeted participants at the end, as usual,” before deciding to cancel his audiences and remain in his residence.

It is the second day that the pope has canceled appearances. Pope Francis did not attend a scheduled liturgy for the priests of the Diocese of Rome in the Basilica of St. John Lateran on Thursday after feeling unwell.

“Due to a slight indisposition,” Pope Francis “preferred to remain in the rooms close to Santa Marta,” Bruni said Feb. 27.

Pope Francis, who is 83 years old, is generally healthy, though he suffers from sciatica and had eye surgery for cataracts last year. When he was young he had a portion of one lung removed because of an infection.

The pope was scheduled to meet Feb. 28 with executives from technology companies, including Microsoft and IBM, who are in Rome for a meeting organized by the Pontifical Academy of Life on ethics in artificial intelligence.

While the Vatican has postponed some events and conferences due to the coronavirus, the pontifical academy’s ethics of AI meetings took place as planned. Pope Francis’ prepared remarks to the conference were read by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Italian authorities have reported 650 cases of the coronavirus in the country, with 17 deaths and 45 recoveries as of Feb. 28. Nearly all of the reported cases are in northern Italy. In response to the outbreak, Italian officials have also imposed quarantine restrictions on several towns in the Lombardy and Veneto regions, where most of the infections have occurred.

In Rome’s region of Lazio there have been just three confirmed cases: an Italian and two Chinese tourists, all of whom have recovered.

The Vatican has implemented special health measures in response to the coronavirus outbreak in Italy. Hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed in Vatican City offices, and there is a nurse and a doctor on call at a Vatican clinic to give immediate assistance, Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni told Vatican News.

As of Feb. 28, Pope Francis is still scheduled to give his Sunday Angelus address on March 1 before leaving for his Lenten retreat March 1-6.

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‘I lost a dad’: Pope Francis speaks about losing Benedict XVI

January 25, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict embrace each other at the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, June 30, 2015. / L’Osservatore Romano.

Rome Newsroom, Jan 25, 2023 / 08:50 am (CNA).

In a new interview published Wednesday, Pope Francis said the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI meant he had lost a “good companion” and a father figure. 

“I lost a dad,” Pope Francis told the Associated Press, praising his predecessor — who died on Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95 — as a “gentleman.” 

Francis said he would visit Benedict for counsel at the converted monastery Mater Ecclesiae in the Vatican Gardens, where the retired pope resided. 

“For me, he was a security. In the face of a doubt, I would ask for the car and go to the monastery and ask.”

The 86-year-old pontiff called Benedict’s decision to live in Mater Ecclesiae a “good intermediate solution” in the wide-ranging interview that also included remarks about the Church’s stance on homosexuality, the German Synodal Way — and his health.

Pope Francis blesses the coffin of Pope Benedict XVI at his funeral on Jan. 5, 2023, at the Vatican. Vatican Media
Pope Francis blesses the coffin of Pope Benedict XVI at his funeral on Jan. 5, 2023, at the Vatican. Vatican Media

Pope Francis has repeatedly praised his predecessor. In April of last year, he described Benedict as “a prophet” of the Church’s future and in November acknowledged his leadership in responding to sexual abuse. On Jan. 4, he said Benedict brought Catholics to an “encounter with Jesus.” 

Francis, who has not ruled out retiring, said Benedict’s decision to live in a converted monastery in the Vatican Gardens was a “good intermediate solution” but that future retired popes might want to do things differently.

“He was still ‘enslaved’ as a pope, no?” Francis said.

“Of the vision of a pope, of a system. ‘Slave’ in the good sense of the word: In that he wasn’t completely free, as he would have liked to have returned to his Germany and continued studying theology.”

Benedict “opened the door” to future resignations, Pope Francis said. The pope also confirmed what he said six months ago: If he should retire, he would choose the title of “bishop emeritus of Rome” — not “pope emeritus” — and live neither in his native Argentina nor the Vatican but in Rome.

Asked if he would reside at Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in a TV interview broadcast on July 12, 2022, Francis said “that could be,” since he would like to retire “to hear confessions at a church.”

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