“As you can see, I am still alive,” Pope Francis jokingly declared to visitors after abandoning his participation in COP28 in Dubai due to “very acute bronchitis.”
A Vatican statement quoted the 86-year-old Argentinian pontiff as explaining to attendees of a seminar on “Ethics in Health Management”: “The doctors won’t let me go to Dubai.”
“The reason is it’s very hot there and you switch from heat to air conditioning. In this bronchial situation (it’s not convenient). Thank God it’s not pneumonia,” he added.
“It was a very acute form of infectious bronchitis. I no longer had a fever, but I was still taking antibiotics,” he explained.
During his weekly audience on Wednesday, the pope appeared tired and breathless in front of the audience and asked an aide to read his text in his stead.
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On the advice of doctors, Francis was forced to cancel this year’s trip to COP28, the annual climate summit in Dubai.
The pope, who underwent a partial lung ablation as a young man, was scheduled to stay in the United Arab Emirates from Friday to Sunday, where he was due to speak on Saturday.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin represented the Holy See in Dubai.
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The pope has made protecting the environment one of the pillars of his pontificate and became the first Catholic Church leader to attend a U.N. summit since its inception in 1995.
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