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Pope Francis hurts his right arm after falling for the second time in just over a month

Vatican Pope Falls
January 16, 2025

ROME (AP) โ€” Pope Francis fell Thursday and hurt his right arm, the Vatican said, just weeks after another apparent fall resulted in a bad bruise on his chin.

Francis didnโ€™t break his arm, but a sling was put on as a precaution, the Vatican spokesman said in a statement

On Dec. 7, the pope whacked his chin on his nightstand in an apparent fall that resulted in a bad bruise.

Pope Francis hurts his right arm after falling for the second time in just over a month
Vatican Pope Falls

The 88-year-old pope, who has battled health problems including long bouts of bronchitis, often has to use a wheelchair because of bad knees. He uses a walker or cane when moving around his apartment in the Vatican's Santa Marta hotel.

The Vatican said that Thursdayโ€™s fall also occurred at Santa Marta, and the pope was later seen in audiences with his right arm in a sling. At one of the meetings, Francis apologetically offered his left hand for a handshake when he greeted the head of the U.N. fund for agricultural development, Alvaro Lario.

โ€œThis morning, due to a fall at the Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis suffered a contusion to his right forearm, without fracture. The arm was immobilized as a precautionary measure,โ€ the statement said.

Speculation about Francis' health is a constant in Vatican circles, especially after Pope Benedict XVI broke 600 years of tradition and resigned from the papacy in 2013. Benedict's aides have attributed the decision to a nighttime fall that he suffered during a 2012 trip to Mexico, after which he determined he couldn't keep up with the globe-trotting demands of the papacy.

Pope Francis hurts his right arm after falling for the second time in just over a month
Vatican Pope

Francis has said that he has no plans to resign anytime soon, even if Benedict โ€œopened the doorโ€ to the possibility. In his autobiography โ€œHopeโ€ released this week, Francis said that he hadn't considered resigning even when he had major intestinal surgery.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APโ€™s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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