It is a preventive decision. The Pope is suffering from what the Vatican defined as a “mild flu,” but in view of his upcoming trip to Luxembourg and Belgium, Pope Francis decided to cancel the audiences he had planned on Monday.
Throughout recent weeks, the 87-year-old pontiff kept a frenetic pace. Not only did he make the longest trip of his pontificate, but he also resumed his daily schedule of meetings, sometimes holding nine in one day.
The trip to Luxembourg and Belgium is scheduled to last four days and during those days he will deliver at least 7 speeches or homilies. In the last few days he showed no signs of alarm and was not seen to be weak. He continued to move around in a wheelchair, as he has been doing for months, but he did not suffer or show, at least in public, problems of any kind.
JD
