Pope has cold, will skip outdoor Sunday prayer ahead of busy week

Associated Press Rome: Pope Francis is suffering from a cold and will deliver his Sunday blessing from indoors, the Vatican said, announcing the precautions ahead of a busy Christmas period and launch of the Holy Year that will sorely test Francis' stamina and health. The Vatican cited the cold temperatures outside and Francis' strenuous week ahead, after a wheezing and congested-sounding pope delivered his annual Christmas greeting to Vatican bureaucrats earlier Saturday.

Francis, who turned 88 this past week, on Tuesday is due to inaugurate his big Holy Year and preside over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations in St. Peter's Basilica. On Thursday, he is scheduled to travel to Rome's main prison to inaugurate the Jubilee there. Francis has long suffered bouts of bronchitis. In 2023, he ended up at the hospital to receive intravenous antibiotics. He had part of one lung removed as a young man and frequently seems out of breath, especially after walking or exerting himself.

Criticism of gossip: He took several minutes to catch his breath on Saturday, when he delivered his annual Christmas greetings to Vatican bureaucrats and lay employees. Once again, he used the occasion to admonish the backstabbing and gossiping among his closest collaborators and urged them instead to speak well of one another. “A church community lives in joyful and fraternal harmony to the extent that its members walk in the life of humility, renouncing evil thinking and speaking ill of others,” Francis said.” Gossip is an evil that destroys social life, sickens people's hearts and leads to nothing. The people say it very well: Gossip is zero,” he added.

By now Francis' annual Christmas address to the priests, bishops and cardinals who work in the Vatican Curia has become a lesson in humility and humilitation as Francis offers a public dressing down of some of the sins in the workplace at the headquarters of the Catholic Church. In the most biting edition, in 2014, Francis listed the "15 ailments of the Curia," in which he accused the prelates of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth. He accused them of living "hypocritical" double lives and forgetting due to ”spiritual Alzheimer's” that they're supposed to be joyful men of God.