Italy, July 18 – Pope Benedict XVI slept well and celebrated his regular daily mass Saturday with his wrist in plaster, the day after his operation on the fracture, his spokesman said.<\/p>\n
“He is learning to live with a right wrist in plaster,” Federico Lombardi told AFP. “The most difficult thing for him is having to give up writing.”<\/p>\n
Lombardi said the 82-year-old pontiff, who is on a two-week holiday in northern Italy, would fly by helicopter on Sunday as planned to Romano Canavese, in the neighbouring Piedmont region, to recite the evening Angelus prayer.<\/p>\n
Some 10,000 people are expected at the ceremony in the town, the birthplace of Vatican number two Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.<\/p>\n
Lombardi said the rest of the pope’s programme during his vacation, which is due to end on July 29, was also unchanged.<\/p>\n
The German-born pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church since April 2005, had two metal pins inserted into the broken bone in a “routine” operation under local anaesthetic at Aosta hospital on Friday.<\/p>\n
He had slipped and fallen in his bedroom during the night, a Vatican statement said.<\/p>\n