The Vatican has made public a video of Pope Francis telling a group of Brazilian bishops this week that his mobility has improved.
“I have been able to walk for three days,” the pope said with a wave on June 27 as he walked across the Apostolic Palace’s library with the assistance of a cane.
As Pope Francis greeted the Brazilian bishops, his wheelchair could be seen in the back of the room. For nearly two months, the pope has used a wheelchair for many of his public appearances.
The pope’s statement came after he used a cane to walk a short distance during the World Meeting of Families’ closing Mass on June 25 and across the stage of Paul VI Hall in an audience with Neocatechumenal Way members on June 27.
According to Pope Francis, he began medical treatment for a knee injury in the first week of May. Due to his health, he has canceled two international trips to Lebanon and South Sudan.
During his meeting with a delegation of Brazilian bishops, Pope Francis encouraged them to speak with him for as long as they wanted and “without censorship.”
According to Vatican News’ Portuguese language service, the meeting lasted three hours, during which Brazilian bishops expressed their concerns to the pope about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
During the discussion about the Amazon, Archbishop Evaristo Pascoal Spengler of Marajo said that Pope Francis “closed his eyes in an expression of pain and suffering and then asked: ‘What can we do?’”
“He is very sensitive to this reality of destruction in the Amazon,” said Spengler, who serves as the president of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (Repam).
During their ad limina visit to Rome in May and June, several delegations of Brazilian bishops met with Pope Francis.
An “ad limina apostolorum” visit is a papal meeting that every diocesan bishop in the world must attend to provide an update on the state of his or her diocese.
The trip to Rome, which is usually made with all of the bishops from a country or region, also serves as a pilgrimage to “the threshold of the apostles,” allowing the bishops, who are the apostles’ successors, to pray at the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Every five years, the world’s more than 5,300 bishops rotate through Rome for ad limina visits.
The most recent ad limina visit for US bishops took place in November 2019.