ROME — The Holy See Press Office announced Friday that Pope Francis has cancelled plans to travel to Florence this Sunday due to “acute gonalgia” or knee pain.
The press release said that the pope’s medical condition would also preclude his yearly celebration of Ash Wednesday Mass on March 2 at the Church of Santa Sabina.
The pontiff’s physician “has prescribed a period of greater rest for the leg,” the statement reads.
The pope’s last health scare occurred in July 2021, when he was hospitalized for ten days following colon surgery.
At that time, Jesuit Father Thomas Reese wrote that “the hospitalization of Pope Francis marks the beginning of the end of his papacy,” adding that time “is running out” for the pope.
Since his election in 2013, Francis has produced “incredible achievements,” Reese wrote, putting his papacy “squarely on the side of migrants and refugees” while offering “a prophetic voice against global warming and the excesses of capitalism.”
“In short, Francis has rebranded the papacy for the 21st century with a pastoral, prophetic and inclusive voice,” Reese declared.
The priest said that despite a positive outcome from his surgery for diverticular stenosis, however, “it will be miraculous if he is able to continue as pope for another five years.”
“We may look back at his hospitalization as the moment that marked the beginning of the end of his papacy,” he asserted.