VATICAN CITY — The Vatican stated that Pope Francis will go to Belgium and Luxembourg later this week, after canceling all of his audiences on Monday due to a “slight flu-like state.”

Matteo Bruni, a Vatican spokesperson, stated that the cancellation affected only Monday’s audiences. He spoke with reporters before the official start of his Vatican briefing to provide details about the trip.

Earlier this morning, the Vatican stated that Francis had canceled his Monday audiences as a “precaution.”

Francis is scheduled to visit Luxembourg on Thursday before spending the rest of the week in Belgium, culminating with a Mass in Brussels on Sunday.

Vatican Confirms Plans For Belgium, Luxembourg Trip After Pope Cancels Audiences Due To Illness

The 87-year-old pope, who has been using a wheelchair for two years, has faced several health issues in recent years, including having part of one lung removed as a young man due to a respiratory ailment.

He has had a full schedule of audiences since returning from a four-nation, 11-day trip through Asia on September 13, the longest and farthest trip of his pontificate. The audiences have included many talks with visiting bishops, individual audiences with his Vatican aides, and a large gathering on Friday with members of popular movements.

The Holy See press office described Francis as being in a “flu-like state.” Francis had acute bronchitis and recurring attacks of influenza throughout the autumn and winter, forcing him to abandon a quick trip to Dubai in November to attend the United Nations climate conference.

According to the Vatican, he did so at the advice of his doctors.

In Belgium, Francis will commemorate the 600th anniversary of the country’s main Catholic universities and minister to Belgians who have been shaken by years of persistent disclosures of clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups.

The rigorous Asia journey, followed by visits to Belgium and Luxembourg, was already going to put Francis’ health to the test, especially as he enters a hectic autumn season. As soon as he returns from Belgium, he will preside over a three-week synod, or bishops’ assembly, that will include long days of closed-door discussion over the church’s future.

Vatican Confirms Plans For Belgium, Luxembourg Trip After Pope Cancels Audiences Due To Illness

On Monday, Francis had scheduled audiences with members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, who are meeting at the Vatican this week for their plenary assembly, as well as participants in a Christmas contest. The Vatican revealed the texts that Francis was meant to have given to both.

Francis has experienced various health issues in recent years. In 2023, he spent three days in the hospital receiving intravenous antibiotics for a respiratory infection. In 2021, he had 13 inches (33 centimetres) of his colon removed, followed by another surgery two years later to treat an abdominal hernia and remove scar tissue.

SOURCE | AP

LONDON — Kate, the Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Sunday since announcing that she had finished chemotherapy and will resume some public duties.

Kate, The Princess Of Wales, Makes First Public Appearance After Cancer Treatment

Kate and her husband, Prince William, were seen Sunday attending church with King Charles III and Queen Camilla near their Scottish royal residence, Balmoral.

Kate, 42, announced on September 9 that she had finished treatment six months after discovering she had an unidentified type of cancer. Her declaration came six weeks after Buckingham Palace revealed the monarch was being treated for cancer.

In a video revealing her progress, she stated that the road to full recovery would be long, and she would tackle it day by day. She stated that she would do some limited engagements through the end of the year.

Kate, The Princess Of Wales, Makes First Public Appearance After Cancer Treatment

The princess made two public appearances earlier this year, despite the fact that she was largely absent from public life during her treatment. She first appeared during the King’s Birthday Parade in June, often known as Trooping the Colour, and most recently during the Wimbledon men’s final in July, where she received a standing ovation.

SOURCE | AP

A source close to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex claim that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle do not want to return permanently to the United Kingdom. Prince Harry will stay stationed in the United States, where he resides with his wife and their children.

It is known that worries about his and his family’s safety in the UK still exist.

According to the BBC, Prince Harry and Meghan are also unlikely to wish to abandon the business and charitable endeavours they developed while residing in the US.

There have been rumours of a disgruntled prince in California, who is getting close to turning forty and is unhappy with his life among the unrooted rich, trying to re-establish ties with his former life in the UK before he resigned as a working royal.

However, reliable sources have asserted a different story, stating that a return to royal life in the UK is not likely.

They contend that Prince Harry can visit the UK again and is just as capable of funding his charitable endeavours and charities from the US.

He flew back to the US after visiting the UK last week for his uncle’s memorial ceremony.

Claims that Prince Harry and Prince William had not talked throughout the church service in Norfolk, despite their growing frigid distance from one another, accounted for a large portion of the attention around the ceremony.

Prince Harry appeared to have maintained strong ties to the late Lord Robert Fellowes, who was Princess Diana’s brother-in-law on the Spencer side of the family.

The prince was spotted beside his Spencer family members during an Invictus Games service held at St. Paul’s Cathedral earlier this summer. Senior royals were not present at the event.

As soon as it was known that King Charles had cancer, the prince swiftly left for the UK, meeting briefly with his father in London.

There have also been excursions to London’s legal courts, when he fought the tabloids over allegations of illegal information collecting.

His security status in the UK is the subject of a continuing, intricate legal battle with the Home Office that has become a contentious topic in any conversation of a return.

The prince stated that he wouldn’t “bring my wife back to this country” in an interview with ITV because he was afraid for their safety.

But now that the pair has made such a public exit from royal life in the UK—in a Netflix movie and his book Spare—there will undoubtedly be speculative discussions about what will happen to them next.

Prince Harry and Meghan could reside anywhere in the virtual world if they didn’t have a royal duty; currently, that’s WFC (where they work from California).

In addition to their charitable endeavours, Meghan has teased a lifestyle cooking business on social media.

Though it is difficult to imagine they won’t want to stir up more than pots of jam given the impending US presidential election and the likelihood that topics they have brought up, including internet disinformation, would likely be debatable.

There have been other visits as well, most notably to Colombia, but they had so many of the hallmarks of a royal visit that it made one wonder whether they were actually travelling back to the world of the royals they were trying to leave behind.

There will be more inquiries about Prince Harry’s long-term future job as his 40th birthday draws near and there is a great deal of public curiosity.

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