The Vatican confirmed that the medical checks Francis has undergone have revealed “a respiratory infection (excluding COVID-19 infection) that will require a few days of appropriate hospital medical treatment. Vatican sources have confirmed that all the appointments on his agenda have been cancelled. In a first communiqué, in which the Vatican informed of the Pope’s admission to the hospital, it had been specified that these were “previously programmed controls”, ruling out, therefore, an unforeseen malaise. Should this be worrying considering the pope role in global politics ?