Pope cancels an appointment, some speeches due to bad cold

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has cancelled an audience with an Italian YMCA group and skipped speeches due to a bad cold. The Vatican says Francis did meet with young Orthodox priests and monks on Thursday and members of German research organization the Max Planck Society. But the Vatican says he merely handed out printed copies of his remarks and did not read them aloud. Francis coughed repeatedly during Ash Wednesday services that he presided over at a Roman church. The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed as a young man because of a respiratory infection and more recently had a chunk of his colon removed in 2021 because of an intestinal inflammation.