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Pope Francis stumbles: On his second day in office Friday, Pope Francis slightly stumbled while he was greeting cardinals.
Pope Francis stumbled while he stepped down to greet cardinals on Friday in the Vatican, his second day as leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
According to the Daily Mail, it appeared that his left shoe got caught up in his white robe. The 76-year-old pontiff, however, did not fall down after he regained his footing.
However, the image of Pope Francis stumbling was captured by the world’s media.
Also, the Vatican on Friday released a statement that defended Francis against allegations that he knew about serious human rights violations during the DirtyWar in Argentina, where the pope is from, during the 1970s. Critics have said that he did not do enough to stop those abuses.
“There have been many declarations of how much he did for many people to protect them from the military dictatorship,” Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, told The New York Times.
He added: “The accusations belong to the use of a historical-social analysis of facts for many years by the anticlerical left to attack the church and must be rejected decisively.”
Lombardi said that no courts had ever formally accused Francis of any wrongdoing.
“This was never a concrete or credible accusation in his regard,” Lombardi said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “He was questioned by an Argentinian court as someone aware of the situation but never as a defendant. He has, in documented form, denied any accusations.”
Francis was elected Wednesday, just weeks after his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, stepped down.
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