Pope Francis said he had “a bit of bronchitis” again and preferred not to read from his prepared speech when he received a group of communicators from France.
“I want to read the whole speech, but I have a problem, a little bit of bronchitis,” said Francisco, who had delivered his planned speech to his first two audiences of the day, although his voice was tired.
At the end of November, Pope Francis suffered from “pulmonary inflammation”, forcing him to miss some events and cancel his trip to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai that was originally scheduled for early December.
The 87-year-old pope later underwent a CT scan (computed axial tomography) at a Rome hospital, which confirmed the health problems and started antibiotic treatment.
He needed several days to recover from bronchitis, during which time he was helped by a collaborator who read out his speech.
The pope has suffered from multiple ailments over the last year due to age and complex surgery for an abdominal hernia.
In April, he was hospitalized for three days with bronchitis and had to be treated with antibiotics, which raised eyebrows because the pope arrived in an ambulance with a fever.
In June, due to adhesions during colon diverticulum surgery in July 2021, he had to undergo abdominal hernia surgery again and was hospitalized for 9 days.
Information from: lopezdoriga.com