Pope Francis turns 87 this Sunday and celebrates it with a party with more than two hundred families and children treated at the Santa Marta Dispensary, and surrounded by congratulations from authorities and people from all over the world.
Traditionally in the Vatican, birthdays are not celebrated, but rather name days, but Francis’s birthday “party” has already become a tradition.
This morning, Francis went to the Paul VI Hall of the Vatican, very close to his personal residence, to participate in the party organized by the Santa Marta Dispensary, a pediatric center of the Holy See founded a century ago, in 1922.
More than 200 families who come to the hospital, as well as their doctors and volunteers, participated in the event, and there were songs, dances, “a small circus show” and, as it could not be otherwise, a birthday cake.
Then Francis will appear before the world to recite the Sunday Angelus from the window of the Apostolic Palace.
The celebration takes place in the midst of Francisco’s well-known health problems, with difficulties walking due to his knee pain, which forces him to often be carried in a wheelchair.
On the other hand, he has recently had to suspend part of his agenda, such as the trip he planned to take to the Dubai climate summit, due to bronchitis.
Although the Pope has already participated in public events again, such as the veneration of the Immaculate Conception in the center of Rome, and in a week he will begin the Christmas rites.
On the other hand, on the eve of his birthday, the Vatican Court sentenced nine people for a financial scandal, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who was his prefect for the Congregation for Causes, to 5 and a half years in prison. de los Santos (2018-2020) and number three of the Secretary of State (2011 and 2018).
In any case, Francis has already begun to receive congratulations such as that of the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who appreciated his continuous calls for peace and care for the environment.
“In a world in which unfortunately new rivalries are added to old conflicts, his incessant pastoral action demands from everyone the demand to build solutions that restore peace by putting the person, with his inalienable dignity, at the center of the action of the international community,” he wrote in a telegram.
The Italian Episcopal Conference also congratulated the pontiff, highlighting its wishes for peace “at this time when all of humanity suffers the drama of violence.”