Pope Francis, no Te Deum and New Year’s Mass: “Painful sciatica”



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“Due to a painful sciatica, the celebrations tonight and tomorrow morning at the Altar of the Chair of the Vatican Basilica will not be presided over by the Holy Father Francesco“Vatican spokesman reports Matteo bruni. The first Vespers and the Te Deum were presided over by the cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, while the mass of January 1, 2021 will be celebrated by the cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of state. “Tomorrow – he adds – Pope Francis will lead in any case the Angelus prayer from the Library of the Apostolic Palace, as planned.” In the text of the Te Deum the Pope wrote: “It may seem forced and almost strident to thank God at the end of a year like this, marked by the pandemic”, but “a cynical and ruthless God does not exist”.

“I do not wish it to anyone”

“Very painful, very painful sciatica! I don’t wish it on anyone,” Pope Francis said, speaking for the first time to reporters about his sciatica on the flight back from Rio de Janeiro on July 28, 2013. To remember him, in the book Pope Francis as I have known him, recently released for the San Paolo editions, is the author Lucio brunelli, which tells how to a journalist who asked him during the papal flight which episode had brought him the most joy and which, on the other hand, had brought him more suffering in the first four months of his pontificate, Bergoglio, without hesitating about the moment of greatest suffering, answered that making him suffer more was it was a new and painful attack of sciatica. Brunelli, citing the Pope’s words, writes: ” ‘The worst thing that came to me is a sciatica that I had the first month because I sat in an armchair to do the interviews and that hurt.’ “

Christmas Mass, the Pope: “We will come out of the tunnel, we will not be discouraged”


Bergoglio has suffered from sciatica for years.

But this is not the first time that lumbosciatalgia has blocked Pope Francis. Already in 2007, Brunelli says in the book, Bergoglio not yet Pope is in Rome to fulfill some institutional duties. The disease presented itself and the then bishop of Buenos Aires had to postpone his return to his beloved diocese. He remains blocked for a few days in the residence in via della Scrofa, a few meters from the church of San Luigi dei Francesi where he almost always stayed when he was in Rome. And visit the physiatrist Valter Santilli, from La Sapienza University Valter Santilli, specialized in rehabilitation.

The pathology that sometimes makes his gait uncertain does not prevent Bergoglio from suffering an exhausting tour de force, for example on international trips or on large appointments at the Vatican.

His suffering walk will continue to be one of the highest moments of this 2020 when, in the torrential rain, alone, he crossed a deserted Plaza de San Pedro to pray in the first period of confinement and, again in March, when he arrived at the church of San Marcello. along via del Corso to call for an end to the pandemic.

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