Right up to the end, Pope Francis thought he would be able to go. But on the evening of Tuesday, November 28, a brief Vatican communiqué announced the cancellation, for health reasons, of the participation of the head of the Catholic Church in the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he was due to speak on December 2. Francis was particularly keen on this visit, which would have been the first by a pope at a climate summit. But to his "great regret," the press release states, he had to cancel it on the advice of his doctors, "even though the Holy Father's general clinical condition has improved with regard to the flu and inflammation of the respiratory tract."
This last-minute decision immediately raised questions about the actual state of health of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who turns 87 on December 17. The climate crisis and its human repercussions are at the heart of his pontificate. He dedicated the first encyclical by a pope on this subject (Laudato si, in 2015) and, in October, an apostolic exhortation (Laudate deum) to these matters.
For several days now, Francis has been suffering from what was initially described as a mild flu. On Saturday, he had to cancel an audience with the president of Guinea Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló. On Sunday, he was unable to say the Angelus from the window of the apostolic palace, as is tradition. Instead, he spoke from the residence of Saint-Marthe, where his apartment is located, referring to a "lung inflammation" before handing over to one of his collaborators.
His activities for the week were then scaled down to allow him to rest before the COP. On Tuesday, the Vatican even presented the agenda for his 36-hour trip to Dubai, during which the pope had scheduled no fewer than 30 meetings, including 20 with heads of state, in addition to his speech.
This alert on the pope's health follows other medical concerns. In March, he was unexpectedly hospitalized with infectious bronchitis. This was a potentially worrying condition given that part of one of his lungs had been amputated at the age of 21, following pleurisy. Francis had subsequently managed to go on a trip to Budapest in April. But in June, he was hospitalized again, this time for an operation on his digestive tract, a continuation of the procedure already performed on the head of the Catholic Church in 2021.
On this occasion, the Vatican felt obliged to indulge in an unusual communications exercise: The pope's surgeon himself gave press briefings detailing his state of health. This gesture of transparency was intended to avoid speculation about his condition and, consequently, his ability to remain in office.
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