VATICAN CITY (AP) – Sick Pope Francis, who is making limited appearances this week due to persistent pain, has drawn attention to the plight of homeless people in the winter, including a Nigerian man who froze to death near the Vatican.
Francis on Sunday asked for prayers for the 46-year-old man named Edwin, who he said was “ignored by everyone, even left by us”. The pope said on January 20, “A few meters from St. Peter’s Square, due to the cold, a Nigerian homeless man was found dead.” Early last week, the temperature in Rome dropped to freezing at night.
A day after the Vatican said Francis, 84, was suffering from sciatica again, a nerve inflammation that could affect the lower back and legs, the pope skipped a scheduled mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. But he appears in the Apostolic Palace Library to give his blessing and comment on the Gospel and on the plight of those without a home.
Edwin’s case “is added to that of so many other homeless people who recently died in Rome in the same dramatic circumstances,” Francis said. “Let’s pray for Edwin.”
Francis often uses his papacy to try to draw attention to the problems of those living on the borders of life, including newly arrived migrants and the homeless. His official alms giver sometimes handed out sleeping bags to those living in the streets near Vatican City.
This is the second time in recent weeks that Francis has been told by the Vatican there is pain in the sciatica, forcing him to skip the events. The latest battle has caused him to postpone his annual start-of-the-year speech to diplomats accredited by the Holy See. Later that day, Francis would be driven to a basilica of Rome to pray with other Christian leaders, but the event would continue without him.
In the same painful condition, he skipped New Year’s Day Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
So far, there has been another six-day pilgrimage to Iraq in early March, a trip Francis hopes to carry out despite the pandemic and violence that has plagued the country, including a suicide attack last week in which 32 people were killed in Baghdad. is.