POPE FRANCIS suffered a black eye after an accident in the Popemobile while on a Papal visit to Colombia.
His Holiness was on a four day trip to the Andean country when the accident happened yesterday, September 10.
Pope Francis was standing in the Popemobile greeting crowds in Cartagena, Colombia when the vehicle braked suddenly.
He lost his balance, bumping his face against a vertical bar on the vehicle, causing bruising to his left cheekbone and eyelid.
The Vatican said he was not seriously hurt, but received ice treatment and was fine to continue on his trip.
He was later seen with a slightly swollen eye, a small bandage over his left eyebrow and blood on his cassock.
Scroll down to see a video of the accident
According to Reuters, the Pope joked, “I was punched. I‘m fine,” as he left a house in the poor neighbourhood of San Francisco on the last day of his trip to Colombia.
He used the trip to urge Colombians deeply polarized by a peace plan to shun vengeance after a bloody civil war, and also said leaders had to enact laws to end injustice and social inequality that breeds violence.
He then said Mass for 500,000 people in the city's port area, urging the Colombian people to 'untie the knots of violence.'
"If Colombia wants a stable and lasting peace, it must urgently take a step in this direction, which is that of the common good, of equity, of justice, of respect for human nature and its demands," he said in a strong voice in the homily of the mass, accompanied by Caribbean and salsa music.
"Only if we help to untie the knots of violence, will we unravel the complex threads of disagreements," he said.
Watch the accident in the Popemobile here...
Pope Francis sports a black eye after stumble on popemobile pic.twitter.com/JZoRkyi3Y7
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) September 11, 2017