A stable Pope Francis had a visit Sunday from the Vatican secretary of state as he continued his recovery from double pneumonia, but again skipped his weekly noon blessing to avoid even a brief public appearance from the hospital.
Instead, the Vatican distributed a message from the pope in which he thanked his doctors for their care and well-wishers for their prayers, and prayed again for peace in Ukraine and elsewhere.
“From here, war appears even more absurd,” Francis said in the message, which he drafted in recent days from the Gemelli hospital, the Vatican said. Francis said he was living his hospitalization as an experience of profound solidarity with people who are sick and suffering everywhere.
“I feel in my heart the ‘blessing’ that is hidden within frailty, because it is precisely in these moments that we learn even more to trust in the Lord,” Francis said in the text. “At the same time, I thank God for giving me the opportunity to share in body and spirit the condition of so many sick and suffering people.”
It marked the third weekend in a row that Francis has canceled the Sunday appointment delivering the Angelus prayer in person. He could have done so from his 10th floor hospital suite at the Gemelli hospital if he were well enough.