During an audience in the Vatican this morning with the participants of the Symposium “Universities of Ecclesiastical Communicators”, promoted by the Episcopal Conference of France, Pope Francis indicated that he suffers from “a little bronchitis.”
At the beginning of the meeting on January 12, the Holy Father delivered the speech prepared for the occasion instead of reading it to those present as he usually does.
“I would like to read the entire speech but I have a problem, I have a little bronchitis and I can’t speak well,” the Pontiff announced.
He then apologized for not being able to address them and explained that due to his health, he “gets tired” when speaking. He also thanked those present for their understanding.
It should be remembered that on Saturday, November 25, Pope Francis suffered inflammation in his lungs due to a “mild flu” that forced him to partially cancel his schedule.
After undergoing a CT scan (computed axial tomography) at the Gemelli hospital in Rome, pneumonia was ruled out, but lung inflammation was shown that caused some breathing difficulties.
For more effective treatment, the Vatican stated that he had been given intravenous antibiotics.
Due to these respiratory problems, the trip that the Holy Father had planned to Dubai on December 1 was canceled on the recommendation of doctors.
In the text delivered to the participants in this symposium, Pope Francis highlighted that communicating “is the most human way that exists.”
For the Holy Father, it is necessary to take a “pause” from time to time to “share, pray and listen” and thus “rediscover the root of what we communicate, the truth to which we are called to bear witness, the communion that gives us unites in Jesus Christ.”
This, according to the Holy Father, also helps “not to fall into the error of thinking that the object of our communication is our individual strategies or companies; to not lock ourselves in our loneliness, our fears or ambitions; “not to bet everything on technological progress.”
“The challenge of good communication,” the Pontiff remarked, “is now more complex than ever, and the risk is to approach it with a worldly mentality: with an obsession with control, power, success; with the idea that the problems are above all material, technological, organizational, economic.” In this sense, he stressed that it is necessary to “start again from the heart.”
Likewise, Pope Francis stated that communicating “is not overpowering the voices of others with our voices, it is not propaganda; sometimes it is even silence; It is not hiding behind slogans or clichés.”
According to the Pontiff, communicating is not marketing or “limiting ourselves to adopting certain techniques,” but rather “it is being in the world to take care of others, it is being everything to everyone.”
“It is sharing a Christian reading of events; It is not surrendering to the culture of aggression and denigration; “It is to build a network of exchange of the good, the true and the beautiful made of sincere relationships” and also to involve young people, he highlighted.
Later, Pope Francis reiterated that communication is “above all testimony.” Therefore, he encouraged them to be brave and to be creative and welcoming.
Regarding the “shame of the abuse scandal” in France, Pope Francis assured that the Church in the country “is in the process of purification” and that “the darkest moments are often those that precede the light.”
Finally, he urged them to “discover that what unites us is always greater than what separates us; and that it must be communicated, with the creativity that is born from love.”
“It is charity that explains everything. Everything becomes clearer, even our communication, from a heart that sees with love,” she concluded.