ROME (AP) 鈥� Pope Francis fell Thursday and hurt his right arm, the Vatican said, just weeks after another apparent fall resulted in .
Francis didn鈥檛 break his arm, but a sling was put on as a precaution, the Vatican spokesman said in a statement
On Dec. 7, the pope whacked his chin on his nightstand in an apparent fall that resulted in a bad bruise.
The 88-year-old pope, who has including long bouts of bronchitis, often has to use because of bad knees. He uses a walker or cane when moving around his apartment in the Vatican's Santa Marta hotel.
The Vatican said that Thursday鈥檚 fall also occurred at Santa Marta, and the pope was later seen in audiences with his right arm in a sling. At one of the meetings, Francis apologetically offered his left hand for a handshake when he greeted the head of the U.N. fund for agricultural development, Alvaro Lario.
鈥淭his morning, due to a fall at the Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis suffered a contusion to his right forearm, without fracture. The arm was immobilized as a precautionary measure,鈥� the statement said.
Speculation about Francis' health is a constant in Vatican circles, especially after 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 鈥渙pened the door鈥� to the possibility. In his autobiography 鈥淗ope鈥� released this week, Francis said that he hadn't considered resigning even when he had major intestinal surgery.
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Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press
