Pope will press on with Belgium, Luxembourg trip despite flu, Vatican says

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By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Francis will press ahead with plans to travel to Luxembourg and Belgium later this week, despite cancelling his meetings for Monday due to a mild flu, the Vatican said.

The tour, his 46th foreign visit as pope, will comes less than two weeks after he returned from a demanding 12-day, four-country excursion around Southeast Asia and Oceania.

The Vatican had said earlier on Monday morning that the 87-year-old pontiff made the decision to cancel his schedule for the day as a precautionary measure in view of the upcoming trip.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni later told journalists the rest of the week would continue “as planned”.

Francis now regularly uses a wheelchair due to knee and back pain. He has also suffered bouts of ill health in recent years. Earlier this year, he cancelled several appointments over what the Vatican variously described as a cold, bronchitis and influenza.

The pope appeared in good form throughout his Sept. 2-13 trip to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He maintained a packed schedule, headlining more than 40 events, and clocked up a total of nearly 33,000 km (20,500 miles).

His trip to Luxembourg and Belgium, which is due to start on Thursday, is expected to highlight the needs of migrants in Europe and to include a meeting with survivors of abuse by Catholic clergy.

Francis’ agenda in Luxembourg and Belgium will be lighter than that of the Southeast Asia and Oceania trip, with the pope scheduled to take part in about a dozen events over four days.

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee and Cristina Carlevaro, Editing by Giulia Segreti, Gareth Jones and Andrew Heavens)