Pope Francis has cancelled his regular appearances in public to stop crowds gathering to see him and will stream them on the internet from inside the Vatican because of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy.
The Vatican said that on Sunday the pontiff will not address crowds from a window overlooking St. Peter's Square, and will also not hold his general audience from there this Wednesday. Both attract tens of thousands of people.
Both the address and general audience will be held without public participation inside the official papal library in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace and will be viewable on the internet or television, the Vatican said in a statement on Saturday. On May 17, 1981, four days after he nearly died in an assassination attempt, Pope John Paul delivered the blessing with a feeble voice from his bed at Rome's Gemelli hospital.
The 83-year-old pope cancelled a Lent retreat for the first time in his papacy, but the Vatican has said he is suffering only from a cold that is "without symptoms related to other pathologies".
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