Pope Francis is 88 years old, fulfilled last December, has been at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome for a month with bilateral pneumonia and, although he has been in a critical situation, it seems that he has exceeded the worst and is in the process of recovery. However, there are many questions about the table, given its age, its fragility and, above all, the precedent of the resignation of Benedict XVI, which in 2013 left office when considering that it was not in a position to continue. Neither the Pontiff nor the Church believe in that option, except in the extreme case. Francisco is already the oldest Pope since Leo XIII, who died in 1903 with 93 years. His hospitalization is the longest of a pontiff after the 55 days of John Paul II in 1981.
How is the Pope?
The Pope is already better, it seems that the worst has happened and there are no daily medical parts. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, admitted on February 14, has crossed very critical days, but last Monday the doctors announced that he was out of danger. Since then his health has been improving. But there is still no departure date of the hospital. Among other things, because it still needs help to breathe. During the night, with mechanical ventilation with a mask, and during the day, with high flow oxygenation, by nasal cannulas. This Monday Vatican Fuentes have first pointed out that at some times he already breathes without help, as was perceived on Sunday in the first photo broadcast. With the healing of pneumonia the Pope should recover autonomy, but it is not known to what extent, and there is already talk of the possibility of enabling a medical team in his room in the Santa Marta del Vatican residence, where he resides. This Monday Vatican Fuentes have reiterated that their departure from the hospital “is not imminent.”
Even if you leave the hospital, will you be able to govern the Church?
That is the key question for which a decisive fact is missing, seeing in what conditions it really is, because only this Sunday the Vatican spread the first image of him in a month, and was on his back. The only source of information has been the brief medical parts. His voice was also heard, the recorded message that was issued on March 6, and more than reassuring, increased concern. His voice was fragile and choppy. Actually, experts explain, the voice practically disappears with pneumonia, at any age. And should recover. Another question is whether you will need to breathe with a mask, and if you will see a Pope with oxygen bottle in public acts. Be that as it may, the Pope and the Vatican will adapt to the new situation, with less public exposure and schedule of agenda.
In any case, even in the worst moments of his convalescence, Bergoglio has launched clear messages that he has followed the command of the Catholic Church. Daily, appointments of bishops and other decisions have been made. The Vatican, with all the intention, has always stressed that it remains conscious and lucid. The essential idea is what said three years ago, when he began to move in a wheelchair, for his knees, and asked if he planned to renounce: “The Church is governed with the head, not with the knees.” As long as he has a head, he will continue.
In addition, neither the Pope nor the Vatican fear to show the image of an old pontiff and in decline, Juan Paul II already did it during his last years, in which Parkinson’s syndrome suffered and was very deteriorated. It reinforces the idea that the papacy is life, which is in the hands of God, to accept old age and the closeness of death. But, obviously, this time there is a new factor: the resignation of Benedict XVI in 2013.
Why has we talked about a possible resignation?
This month, as several more times in recent years, every time the Pope had health problems, there has been talk of whether he could give up. Joseph Ratzinger’s precedent makes it a perfectly relevant question. That is why journalists have asked each cardinal to be interviewed, and for the same reason the answer has been possible if Francisco wants. But the truth is that the debate does not exist in public, no cardinal, not even the staunch enemies of Francisco, of the most conservative side, have asked. Moreover, they are contrary, a factor that can be paradoxical if the internal dynamics of the Church are not known: for the most traditional, the resignation of Benedict XVI was a dramatic and dangerous breakdown of ancient rules that should not be repeated.
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, for example, one of the referents of this sector, already said in 2023 that he was “absolutely against” and came to say that Ratzinger’s decision was not “clearly reflected, or dogmatic, or canonical.” Now he has repudiated all gossip on the conclave or successors and has repeated it again: “The resignation of a Pope cannot be considered an option.” It is very striking that in the Italian press there are no quinielas and papable lists, or calculations on the conclave, unlike what happened in the last years of John Paul II.
Could Francisco resign?
Yes, of course, he himself has said it bluntly. In 2022 he already said that, after being elected, in 2013, he wrote a letter with his resignation and handed it to the Secretary of State, then Tarcisio Bertone, to use it “in case of impediment for medical reasons.” In 2023 he explained again that he would have no problem in renouncing if he did not see in a position to continue, but already clarified that it would be an extreme case, reduced to the loss of mental faculties, because “we do not have to become, say, in a fashion, a normal thing; ad vitam”
“In this the Pope is totally right, it is a very wise posture. Osservatore Romanothe Vatican newspaper, between 2007 and 2018. “In my opinion, it will not resign.
Why is the resignation problematic?
It should not be forgotten that the resignation of Benedict XVI was a trauma in the church, it did not happen from Gregory XII, in 1415, and occurred for its impotence to face serious internal problems, from corruption to financial scandals and pedophilia in the church. They were contained in that great box that gave his successor the first time they saw each other, an image for the story. Francisco was chosen in the middle of a crisis. But it made a worse fear, an unpublished scenario arose and evoked other traumas of the past: the risks of the coexistence of two potatoes are a nightmare for the church, which remembers the times of potatoes, antipapas and schisms. They unleashed a thousand funesto debates and auguries after Ratzinger’s resignation, which have then vanished to find that Francisco and Benedict XVI have taken it very well, until the death of the second in 2022.
But the fear is that it does not have to be so. It is a fact that the conservative sector of the Church has tried these years to involve Ratzinger in maneuvers against Bergoglio, to disallow him, that the German Pope always disregarded elegantly, as Massimo Franco has told of the Corriere della willin your book The enigma Bergoglio: “The adversaries of Bergoglio, often conservative to the desperate search for a word of Benedict XVI that sounded like criticism of Bergoglio, have seen how it invariably responded that ‘the Pope is one, is Francisco’.
“The Pope wants to move on, he will not resign except that something really very, very serious happens to him,” says Elisabetta Piqué, Biographer and friend of Bergoglio, correspondent in Rome of the Argentine newspaper The nation. It points precisely that the pontiff can feel the weight of the responsibility of not consolidating as a new trend, with his resignation, a fact that he and the whole Church wants it to be exceptional, that of Benedict XVI. “This would be problematic for his successor, because he would already reinforce that line, and he does not want to become a fashion, for him the Church is not a company, where one retires when he is greater, and believes that he is in his hand to decide or not to become a trend.”
