G
gilliam
Guest
If you’ve been watching Pope Francis over the past three days in Cuba, you may have seen him grimace once in a while, usually while getting up or sitting down, or noticed that he’s sometimes ill at ease walking, especially if he has to cover a lot of ground.
Those perceptions are entirely accurate, but they don’t betoken any hidden health crisis for the 78-year-old pontiff, who will turn 79 in December. Instead they’re likely a product of his longstanding problem with sciatica, a condition that produces pain running down the leg from the back.
Vatican officials quietly confirmed shortly after his election that Francis has sciatica, after it seemed clear that he had difficulty walking long distances. It’s flared up before, and in June 2014 caused Francis to decide not to take part in Rome’s traditional Corpus Christ procession on foot.
While sciatica can be painful, it hasn’t prevented Francis from keeping up a breakneck pace so far on his Cuba trip, nor from the spontaneous encounters for which he’s become legendary.
During the flight from Rome to Havana on Saturday, for instance, the pontiff spent roughly an hour making his way through the press compartment to personally greet each of the 77 journalists covering the trip. (So many items were handed to the pope as he made his way through, by the way, that aides nearly required a luggage cart to haul it all back up to the front of the plane. A Spanish-speaking TV crew gave him the Emmy they won for conclave coverage; I gave him my Time bookazine.)
Francis is, of course, nearing 80, and is still missing the piece of his left lung that was removed when he came down with a severe respiratory infection at the age of 19. As is always the case when popes travel, he’s being accompanied by his personal physician, Fabrizio Soccorsi, who was appointed to the post in August and is an expert in liver diseases and surgical medicine. (Interestingly, Soccorsi’s last name is the plural form of the term Italians use for “first aid.”)
That said, there’s no indication this Energizer bunny of a pope has any intention of slowing down. Among other things, he’ll preside over a Synod of Bishops on the family in Rome just days after he returns from the United States, and in November he plans to visit Kenya, Uganda, and the war-torn Central African Republic.
So if you see him wince once in a while as he’s moving around the States this week, don’t be unduly alarmed that something serious is going on.
cruxnow.com/papal-visit/2015/09/22/a-hobbled-pope/
Those perceptions are entirely accurate, but they don’t betoken any hidden health crisis for the 78-year-old pontiff, who will turn 79 in December. Instead they’re likely a product of his longstanding problem with sciatica, a condition that produces pain running down the leg from the back.
Vatican officials quietly confirmed shortly after his election that Francis has sciatica, after it seemed clear that he had difficulty walking long distances. It’s flared up before, and in June 2014 caused Francis to decide not to take part in Rome’s traditional Corpus Christ procession on foot.
While sciatica can be painful, it hasn’t prevented Francis from keeping up a breakneck pace so far on his Cuba trip, nor from the spontaneous encounters for which he’s become legendary.
During the flight from Rome to Havana on Saturday, for instance, the pontiff spent roughly an hour making his way through the press compartment to personally greet each of the 77 journalists covering the trip. (So many items were handed to the pope as he made his way through, by the way, that aides nearly required a luggage cart to haul it all back up to the front of the plane. A Spanish-speaking TV crew gave him the Emmy they won for conclave coverage; I gave him my Time bookazine.)
Francis is, of course, nearing 80, and is still missing the piece of his left lung that was removed when he came down with a severe respiratory infection at the age of 19. As is always the case when popes travel, he’s being accompanied by his personal physician, Fabrizio Soccorsi, who was appointed to the post in August and is an expert in liver diseases and surgical medicine. (Interestingly, Soccorsi’s last name is the plural form of the term Italians use for “first aid.”)
That said, there’s no indication this Energizer bunny of a pope has any intention of slowing down. Among other things, he’ll preside over a Synod of Bishops on the family in Rome just days after he returns from the United States, and in November he plans to visit Kenya, Uganda, and the war-torn Central African Republic.
So if you see him wince once in a while as he’s moving around the States this week, don’t be unduly alarmed that something serious is going on.
cruxnow.com/papal-visit/2015/09/22/a-hobbled-pope/