VATICAN CITY (AP) 鈥 For a second Sunday, an ailing Pope Francis skipped his popular window appearance to the public in St. Peter鈥檚 Square, but in televised remarks said he鈥檚 doing better even though his voice wouldn't let him read all his comments aloud.
As he did a week earlier, Francis delivered very brief remarks from the chapel of the Vatican hotel where he lives and where he is recovering from what he has said is infectious bronchitis. Thousands of people in the square followed his words from giant screens set up outdoors.
Francis, whose 87th birthday is later this month, also said he is following from afar the workings of The pontiff was due to go to the COP28 conference on Friday to address the gathering.
During his first chapel appearance on Nov. 26, he insisted he would make the trip despite his illness. He instead following his doctors鈥 orders and stayed at the Vatican, where he has received antibiotics intravenously.
鈥淒ear brothers and sisters, good day. Also today, I won't be able to read everything. I'm getting better, but the voice still isn't鈥 enough to read everything, Francis said. He then passed the microphone to a priest who read prepared remarks, including about the end of the truce in the Israeli-Hamas war.
鈥淚t's painful that the truce has been broken,'' Francis said in the remarks read by the priest. 鈥漈hat means death, destruction and misery,'' the pontiff said. He called for the release of the remaining hostages who were seized from Israel in the Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, and lamented the lack of basic necessities of life in Gaza after Israel launched its war against Hamas.
On Thursday, Francis told an audience of health care workers that he was advised against making the Dec. 1-3 trip to the United Arab Emirates because "it鈥檚 very hot there, and you go from heat to air conditioning,鈥 Of his current illness, Francis told that audience: 鈥淭hank God it wasn鈥檛 pneumonia.
Previously the Vatican had said . Francis had a previous case of acute bronchitis in the spring, when he was hospitalized for three days so he could .
Francis said that 鈥渆ven from a distance, I am following with great attention the work of COP28 in Dubai. I am close鈥 to the conference. He said he was renewing his appeal so that 鈥渃limate change is answered by concrete political change."
In his Sunday remarks about climate change, Francis urged the end of what he called 鈥渂ottlenecks鈥 caused by nationalism, and 鈥減atterns of the past." He added: "let's embrace a common vision, committing all of us and now, without delay, to a necessary global ecological conversion.鈥
