ROME — ROME (AP) — Pope Francis stated in a letter revealed Tuesday that his prolonged sickness has helped make “extra lucid” to him the absurdity of conflict, as his high deputy shot down any suggestion of resignation and plans progressed for an April 8 assembly with Britain’s King Charles III.
Italian every day Corriere della Sera revealed a letter to the editor from Francis, signed and dated March 14 from Rome’s Gemelli hospital the place the 88-year-old pontiff has been handled since Feb. 14 for a posh lung an infection and double pneumonia.
In it, Francis renewed his name for diplomacy and worldwide organizations to discover a “new vitality and credibility.” And he stated that his personal sickness had additionally helped make some issues clearer to him, together with the “absurdity of conflict.”
“Human fragility has the ability to make us extra lucid about what endures and what passes, what brings life and what kills,” he wrote.
Responding to a letter from the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Luciano Fontana, Francis additionally urged him and all these within the media to “really feel the complete significance of phrases.”
“They’re by no means simply phrases: they’re information that form human environments. They will join or divide, serve the reality or use it for different ends,” he wrote. “We should disarm phrases, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth.”
The letter was revealed as Francis registered slight enhancements in his therapy and because the Vatican No. 2, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, shot down any suggestion the pope may resign.
“Completely no,” Parolin informed journalists on Monday. Parolin has visited Francis twice throughout his hospitalization, most recently March 2, and stated he discovered Francis higher then than his first go to Feb. 25.
Francis is now capable of spend a while in the course of the time off excessive flows of oxygen and use simply strange supplemental oxygen delivered by a nasal tube, the Holy See press workplace stated. Medical doctors are additionally attempting to chop again on the period of time he makes use of a noninvasive mechanical air flow masks at night time, to power his lungs to work extra.
Whereas these quantity to “slight improvements,” the Vatican isn’t but offering any timetable on when he may be launched. That stated, Buckingham Palace introduced Monday that King Charles III was scheduled to meet with Francis on April 8 on the Vatican.
Such state visits are at all times intently organized with Parolin’s workplace, suggesting that the Holy See believed the pope can be again residence by then, barring any setbacks.
The developments got here because the Vatican launched some particulars on the primary {photograph} of Francis launched since his hospitalization. The picture, taken Sunday from behind, confirmed Francis sitting in his wheelchair in his personal chapel in prayer with none signal of nasal tubes.
The picture, displaying Francis carrying a Lenten purple stole, adopted an audio message Francis recorded March 6 during which he thanked folks for his or her prayers, his voice soft and labored.
Collectively, they advised Francis could be very a lot controlling how the general public follows his sickness to stop it from turning right into a spectacle. Whereas many within the Vatican have held up St. John Paul II’s lengthy and public battle with Parkinson’s illness and different illnesses as a humble signal of his willingness to indicate his frailties, others criticized it as extreme and glorifying illness.
The picture definitely reassured some well-wishers who got here to Gemelli to hope for Francis, who’s recovering within the tenth ground papal suite reserved for popes.
“After a month of hospitalization, lastly a photograph that may guarantee us that his well being circumstances are higher,” stated the Rev. Enrico Antonio, a priest from Pescara.
On the Vatican, Sister Mary, a nun from Kenya, stated she thought “he appears to be like nice.”
“The state of affairs was very vital. However now seeing the picture, it makes me smile. It makes me really feel higher,” she stated. “It makes me even really feel safer that the church continues to be happening, that our pope can come again to us.”
However Benedetta Flagiello of Naples, who was visiting her sister who’s a affected person at Gemelli, questioned if the picture was even actual.
“As a result of if the pope can sit for a second and not using a masks, with out something, why didn’t he look out the window on the tenth ground to be seen by everybody?” she requested. “In case you bear in mind our previous pope (John Paul II), he couldn’t converse up, however he confirmed up.”
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Paolo Santalucia and Silvia Stellacci contributed.
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