Since Nov. 26, the pope has only offered brief off-the-cuff remarks during many of his audiences, while his longer prepared speeches were either read by an aide or distributed to his guests, as Pope Francis recovered from what he has described as “very acute infectious bronchitis.”
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, also read Francis’ keynote speech to the U.N.’s COP28 climate conference on Dec. 2 after the pope’s trip to the climate summit in Dubai was canceled at the request of his doctors.
In addition to his three speeches on Thursday, Pope Francis had private meetings with the former archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit; Archbishop Yagop Jacques Mourad of Homs, Syria; Archbishop Jan Romeo Pawłowski, the apostolic nuncio to Greece; and Archbishop Nareg Alemezian of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Pope Francis, who turns 87 this month, is scheduled to preside over a ceremony on Dec. 8 honoring the Virgin Mary in the piazza below Rome’s Spanish Steps and deliver a special Friday Angelus address to mark the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The Vatican has not disclosed whether any special accommodations, including having an aide read his speeches, could be made for the pope during his busy schedule on the Marian feast day.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.
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