VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis, who is recovering from a life-threatening bout of pneumonia, urged Catholics Sunday to mark Lent as a “time of healing” as he missed his seventh Angelus prayer.
The 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church left Rome's Gemelli hospital last Sunday after five weeks of treatment, returning to the Vatican for what his doctors said would be at least two months of convalescence.
Francis was again absent Sunday for the Angelus, normally delivered at midday from a window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking Saint Peter's Square, publishing the text instead.
“Dearest friends, let us live this Lent as a time of healing,“ he wrote, referring to the period before Easter, the holiest period in the Christian calendar, celebrated this year on April 20.
“I too am experiencing it this way, in my soul and in my body.”
He added: “Frailty and illness are experiences we all have in common; all the more, however, we are brothers in the salvation Christ has given us.”
The Vatican said Friday the pope was showing “slight improvements”, with his voice -- strained and weak following his double pneumonia -- reported to be stronger.
Doctors said Francis almost died twice during his hospitalisation, the longest and most fraught of his 12 years as head of the Church.
The pope on Sunday offered his prayers for those involved in conflicts in Ukraine, the Palestinian territories and Israel, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as for quake-hit Myanmar.
He said he was following “with concern” the situation in South Sudan, where there has been heightened confrontation in recent weeks between the rival factions which fought each other in the 2013-2018 civil war.
“I renew my heartfelt appeal to all leaders to do their utmost to lower the tension in the country,“ he said, urging everyone to put aside their differences and engage in “constructive dialogue”.
Francis also urged new negotiations as soon as possible in war-torn Sudan.
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics noted that “thanks be to God, there are also positive events”.
He described a recent border agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- seen as key for the stability of Central Asia -- as an “excellent diplomatic achievement”.
