Pope skips weekly blessing, but is in stable condition: Vatican

The Vatican distributed a message from the pope in which he thanked his doctors for their care and well-wishers for their prayers after he skipped his weekly noon blessing.

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.

But many signs indicated he was improving, especially after a respiratory crisis on Friday afternoon that resulted in him inhaling vomit during a coughing fit and raising the possibility of new infection.

“The night was quiet, the pope is still resting,” the Vatican said in its Sunday update. Francis was up, read the Sunday papers and had coffee and breakfast while continuing with his therapy.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin and his chief of staff, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, also called on the pope Sunday morning, their second visit since Francis’ Feb. 14 hospitalization, according to the Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni. There were no details of what was discussed, but the mere visit suggested Francis’ condition was stabilizing.