I haven’t watched TV for 25 years — Pope
Pontiff says he misses freedom to go out and get a pizza
The Pope has disclosed that he has not watched television for 25 years — not even the matches played by his beloved Buenos Aires football team. The pontiff told an Argentine newspaper that he last switched on a television in 1990. After that he simply decided that “it was not for me”, he told La Voz del Pueblo.
To find out whether, San Lorenzo, his favourite football team has won or lost, he has to ask the Swiss Guards, who draw up a table of results for him each week.
The Pope also disclosed that he reads only one newspaper — the Italian Left-of-centre daily La Repubblica.
The comment is unlikely to go down well with the editors of L’Osservatore Romano, the stodgy Vatican newspaper, or Avvenire, an equally sober tome owned by the Italian Bishops Conference.
Asked what he most missed about his old life in Argentina, Pope Francis cited the freedom to walk out into the streets and go to a pizzeria.
The Argentinian newspaper suggested that he simply order in a pizza to eat in the Vatican. “Yes, but it’s not the same. The nice thing is to go to there, to the pizzeria,” he said.
“I’ve always been a keen walker. When I was a cardinal [in Buenos Aires] I used to love walking the streets”.
He made the same complaint in March, when he was interviewed by a Mexican television channel on the second anniversary of his election as Pope. Asked if he was able to sleep soundly, despite the burden of being the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church, he said: “I sleep very deeply”.