Pope Francis will resume
his weekly general audiences next month after a period without
public commitments following his gruelling Latin American trip
but the pontiff continues to work through the summer preparing
for his upcoming visit to Cuba and the United States, a senior
Vatican official said Friday.
The Argentinian pope, who never takes vacations and will
resume his audiences August 5, spends the hot summer days "with
so much serenity and happiness," Monsignor Giullermo Karcher,
head of pontifical ceremony, and one of the pontiff's closest
collaborators, told Vatican Radio.
"I see him always happy, every morning. He is always working
by the way, I always find him with his hands busy, full of
papers, of correspondence - he takes great care to reply
personally ".
"So he spends this time in communication with his friends,
with the people who he cares about," Mons. Karcher added, "He
takes advantage of having more time at his disposal and so
dedicates himself to this. Then there is the reading of
documents and of projects that reach him for the future".
The Argentinian pope also misses the old days in Buenos
Aires when he was able to walk freely in the streets.
"He misses it, yes, he was very used to walking, walking
and being with the people".
"I am thinking of the Argentinian summer, the month of
January that is comparable to this hot and humid July - he spent
those days visiting the favelas of Buenos Aires, sharing this
hard period of heat and even sacrifice with the people".
"However he offers this to God and lives it as a moment to
give to the Lord, as an offering, this way of ministry as pope,
close to the people who suffer whose lies are made more
impossible by the heat - we think of those shanty-town huts,
which certainly are not fitted with fans..."
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