Pope Francis was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936 in Flores, a neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He was the eldestof five children of Mario José Bergoglio (1908–1959) and Regina María Sívori (1911–1981).

Mario Bergoglio was an Italian immigrant accountant born in Portacomaro (Province of Asti) in Italy’s Piedmont region. Regina Sívori was a housewife born in Buenos Aires to a family of northern Italian (Piedmontese-Genoese) origin.

Mario José’s family left Italy in 1929 to escape the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini. According to María Elena Bergoglio (born 1948), the pope’s only living sibling, they did not emigrate for economic reasons.

His other siblings were Oscar Adrián (1938–deceased), Marta Regina (1940–2007), and Alberto Horacio (1942–2010). Two great-nephews, Antonio and Joseph, died in a traffic collision. His niece, Cristina Bergoglio, is a painter based in Madrid, Spain.

Pope Francis was unable to deliver his weekly Wednesday audience speech as he was once again hospitalized. Let’s find out why the pontiff needed medical intervention.

Pope Francis was taken to a hospital in Rome for a check-up as he is suffering from the flu. This is the reason why the 87-year-old pontiff had to delegate a counselor to deliver the Wednesday audience speech on his behalf.

Pope Francis isn’t in the best health condition at the moment. As a result, he had to cancel the meetings he had scheduled for Saturday and Monday. The Vatican assured that there is no reason to worry, as the pontiff is only dealing with a mild flu. On Sunday, he addressed the crowd in St. Peter’s Square as usual for the Angelus.

“Dear brothers and sisters, I am still a little bit sick,” Pope Francis stated during Wednesday’s audience, announcing that someone else would read his catechesis on envy and pride, two of the seven deadly sins.

At the end of the audience, with a hoarse voice and a dry cough, the Pope spoke to greet some of the faithful and made appeals for peace, as he often does. He talked about the conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and the Palestinian territories, as well as the recent deadly attacks on a Catholic church and a mosque in Burkina Faso.

After the general audience, Pope Francis went to Gemelli Hospital “for a few tests” before returning to the Vatican.