Pope Francis stumbles walking into Jubilee audience at Vatican

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis tripped while entering the Vatican auditorium for an audience Saturday after the handle of his walking stick snapped, but he avoided falling.

The 88-year-old pope often has to use a wheelchair or a cane because of bad knees and has fallen twice in the past two months.

After Saturday’s slight stumble, two aides helped him to his chair on the stage and the audience proceeded without incident. After he recovered someone in the audience shouted “Viva il Papa” and the audience applauded.

Earlier in January, Francis fell and hurt his right arm. It wasn’t broken, but a sling was put on as a precaution.

On Dec. 7, the pope whacked his chin on his nightstand in an apparent fall that resulted in a bad bruise.

The pontiff has long battled health problems including long bouts of bronchitis. He uses a walker or cane when moving around his apartment in the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel.

Speculation about Francis’ health is a constant in Vatican circles, especially after Pope Benedict XVI broke 600 years of tradition and resigned from the papacy in 2013. Benedict’s aides have attributed the decision to a nighttime fall that he suffered during a 2012 trip to Mexico, after which he determined he couldn’t keep up with the globe-trotting demands of the papacy.

Francis has said that he has no plans to resign anytime soon, even if Benedict “opened the door” to the possibility. In his autobiography “Hope” released this month, Francis said that he hadn’t considered resigning even when he had major intestinal surgery.