In an interview given to Italian radio a senior Vatican cardinal has discussed the issue of whether Pope Francis should or might resign due to his health problems that have seen him hospitalised for more than a week.
His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, in 2013 became the first pope to resign since 1294, at the time citing health problems that arguably were not as serious as Pope Francis’s. The latter has also perviously alluded to his belief that if heath problems became serious enough he would consider resigning.
As the pontiff enters his eighth day in hospital today, 21 February, suffering from pneumonia in both lungs – one of which had to be partially removed when he was a young man – Vatican watchers are wondering if that level of seriousness might be getting closer, reports The Times of London.
“I think he could [resign] because he is a person who, from this point of view, is quite decisive in his choices,” Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, a former President of the Pontifical Council for Culture who is regarded as a prominent intellectual in the Roman Curia, said in the radio interview.
Sources close to the Pope have emphasised that he is not in mortal danger and that he is gradually recovering. The Pope has been working from his bed this week at Gemelli Hospital in Rome, and Ravasi recalled how, when painful knees forced him to use a wheelchair, Francis said: “You govern with your brain not your knee.”
Though the cardinal added: “That said, it is beyond doubt that if he found himself in a situation where his ability to have direct contacts – which he loves – and to communicate immediately, incisively and decisively were compromised, then I believe he could decide to resign.”
The Times notes that Ravasi also hinted that the justification of a working brain has its limits, pointing out how Benedict made the historic decision to be the first pope to resign for more than 600 years because he could not handle the papal trips, audiences and “all those endless appointments”.
Pope Francis has complimented Benedict for “opening the door” for other popes to resign, saying: “It was such a very good thing for the Church. He told popes to stop in time.”
In his memoir Life: My Story Through History, published last year, Francis wrote, “I think that the Petrine ministry is ad vitam [for life] and therefore I see no conditions for a resignation.”
Though in the very next sentence he added, “things would change if a serious physical impediment were to arise.”
He has also revealed that he has signed a resignation letter to be used by officials if poor health stops him carrying out his duties. However, he has also said that resignation should not become “a fashion, a normal thing” for popes, The Times notes.
It then adds how, given a degree of ambiguity expressed by the Pope on the issue of his potential resignation, in 2023 he was pressed on the issue of how frail does he think a pope needs to be to resign. In response, Francis spoke of “a tiredness that doesn’t let you see things clearly. A lack of clarity, of knowing how to evaluate situations”.
During his papacy, and especially the latter half of it, Pope Francis has displayed a strong constitution and arguably a remarkable robustness in recent years when it comes to his ability to focus on the job while dealing with his declining health.
The Times notes that the papal biographer Austen Ivereigh has said: “He has shown he has no problem being a more frail pope.”
Though the biographer adds that, at the same time, the 88-year-old Pope still wants to give his all to the papal role.
“For Francis there is no 20 per cent papacy and if he thinks he cannot fully exercise the papal mission then yes, he could resign,” Ivereigh said, adding: “He would not want – no one wants – a return to the John Paul II years, which were dominated by his health.”
John Paul II, who was head of the Catholic Church from 1978 to his death in 2005, was treated at Gemelli Hospital nine times for a total of 153 days – to the point he jokingly referred to the hospital as one of his residences, The Times recalls. In his later years, John Paul was hampered by Parkinson’s disease.
The difference this time round, Ivereigh notes, is the fact that Pope Francis does not have a similar degenerative condition, which could prove key for the time being.
“Hopefully he can pull through and as long as there is no prognosis of a long-term, debilitating or degenerative condition, I think he will push on,” the papal biographer concluded.
Recent laboratory tests have indicated that there has been a slight improvement in Pope Francis’s overall condition.
He had a 20-minute meeting mid-week with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who visited him at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
A statement from Meloni’s office said the Italian prime minister wished the Pope a speedy recovery on behalf of the government and the entire nation.
“I am very happy to have found him alert and responsive,” Meloni said, adding: “We joked as always. He has not lost his proverbial sense of humour.”
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Photo: Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, during his role as president of the Pontifical Council for Culture (CNS).
