Pope Francis' health conditions remain “stable”, but the “lung inflammation” that has forced him to suspend the trip to the climate summit in Dubai persists, the Holy See reported this Wednesday.

“The holy father's conditions are stable, he has no fever, but lung inflation associated with respiratory problems persists,” the Vatican confirmed in a statement.. For this reason, the Argentine pontiff, who will turn 87 on December 17, will continue with antibiotics.

This Wednesday morning, Francis appeared before thousands of faithful at the traditional general audience and stated that he was still not well, so his catechism had to be read by a collaborator. “I'm still not well with this flu. The voice is not good,” he explained to the faithful present in the Paul VI classroom at the Vatican.

Before the hearing, the same thing had happened when he received the Scottish football club Celtic, as he preferred that his collaborator give the prepared speech and then improvised some words.

Last Saturday Francisco underwent a CT scan (computed axial tomography) in a hospital in Rome, which confirmed these health problems.

Several ailments this year

Despite recent respiratory problems, which forced him to cancel the aforementioned trip, as already happened with the visit to Congo and South Sudan, which was rescheduled due to knee problems, this Tuesday he received and chatted for more than two hours with the Spanish bishops, summoned to analyze the situation of the seminaries in Spain.

During the Angelus last Sunday, Jorge Bergoglio did not appear at the papal palace either and stayed in the chapel of his residence, Casa Santa Marta, to pray the Sunday prayer, which was broadcast by the Vatican media.

In this situation, on Monday he chose to receive the president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, and his entourage at his residence, and not at the Apostolic Palace.

Francisco has had several ailments this year due to age and a complicated operation for an abdominal hernia

In April, he was hospitalized for three days for bronchitis that had to be treated with antibiotics and which caused concern, since the pontiff arrived with fever and in an ambulance.

In June, by surprise, and due to the presence of adhesions from his previous colon diverticulum operation in July 2021, he had to undergo surgery again for an abdominal hernia and was hospitalized for nine days.