Pope Francis meets with families and children despite still having a cold: “I have not recovered”

He Pope Francisco received the workers and patients of the Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital this Saturday and, although he couldn’t read his speech because of a coldspent a long time personally greeting the families and their children, some of whom had arrived from Ukraine and Gaza for humanitarian reasons.

“I’m glad to see you. I haven’t recovered and that’s why I can’t read my message properly. Monsignor Ciampanelli will do it for me. Thank you,” he explained, eliciting applause from the faithful, at the beginning of the audience in the Paul VI Hall of the Vatican.

It is not the first time that the Pope has had to give up reading his speech and in recent days he has alluded to the persistence of a “cold.”

Once your message has been read, The pontiff was taken among the public in the wheelchair that he has been using in recent times due to his well-known mobility problems. In this way he was able to personally greet many of the more than three thousand doctors, researchers and various staff of the Bambino Gesù, one of the leading pediatric hospitals in Europe and which this year celebrates its hundred years as property of the Holy See.

But above all to numerous families with sick children, whom He blessed, hugged and even signed autographs writing the letter “F” on paper.

The hospital reported in a statement that among these children there are many who arrived from war countries and were treated in Rome for humanitarian reasons, some from Ukraine and Gaza.

Previously, in his speech – read by his collaborator – the Pope had praised the work of this pediatric hospital founded in 1869 and which one hundred years ago was donated to the Vatican by its former owners, the family of the Salviati dukes.

“Dear brothers and sisters, I confess that when I visit the Bambino Gesù I have two mixed feelings: I feel pain for the suffering of the sick children and their parents, but at the same time I feel great hope seeing everything that is done to cure them. Thank you, thank you for all this!” he encouraged. And he finished: “Continue with that blessed work. I bless you from the bottom of my heart and pray for you. And you too, please pray for me.”

The meeting occurred after excerpts from Pope Francis’ autobiography were revealed, which will be published next week and where he states that resigning from his duties is a distant hypothesis and that it would only be justified in the face of a serious physical impediment.