Vatican City: Pope Francis is fueling the rumored factory at the strange timing of a postponed trip to Africa and the Cardinal’s next meeting-but experts warn against assuming that resignation is near. The 85-year-old priest, who suffered from pain in his knees and had to use his wheelchair for the past few weeks, postponed his July trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan last week.
The move, along with the unusual decision to hold a synod to appoint a new cardinal during the August vacation, is fierce speculation about future plans, including the most radical ones he planned to resign. Caused. Many say it’s not that fast.
“In the Pope’s aides, the vast majority of people don’t really believe in the possibility of resignation,” a Vatican source told AFP. According to Italian Vatican expert Marco Politi, rumors within the Roman Curia, the powerful governing body of the Catholic Church, are not new and are often stimulated by interested people. “These rumors are encouraged by Pope’s opponents who are just eager for Francisco to leave,” he told AFP.
Door to the retired pope
The resignation of the Pope was once unthinkable. But when Pope Benedict XVI stood up in 2013, he set a precedent because of his poor physical and mental health. In 2014, a year after being elected to replace Benedict, Francis himself told reporters that it was his health that prevented him from functioning as a pope. “He (Benedict) opened the door to the retired Pope,” the deity said at the time. Recently in May, Francis joked about his knees at a private meeting with the bishops, as reported by various Italian media.
However, according to the Vatican, the trip to Canada at the end of July is still scheduled for Pontiff, and the Pope continues to receive knee injections and physiotherapy. As a child, Francis had a partial excision of one of his lungs. Today, in addition to his knee problems, he repeatedly suffers from sciatic nerve pain.
Rumors of his resignation spread after Francis had a colon surgery last year, urging a Spanish radio station to say, “The idea didn’t come to my mind.” But beyond his health, a series of calendared events in the coming months question whether Francis is laying the foundation for retirement, ensuring that his reforms remain intact. There is a Vatican watcher.
Convening Cardinal
The first was his decision to convene an extraordinary synod on August 27, the late summer month in the Vatican, to create 21 new cardinals. Since taking office as Pope in 2013, Argentine Pontiffs have been 83 to shape the future of the Catholic Church to counter the historically dominant influence of Europe and reflect his values. Created the Cardinal of.
On August 28, Francis visits the tombs of L’Aquila and Pope Celestine V. This is the first pope to resign from the Holy See in the 13th century. He then joins the Cardinals of the World-many of them meet their companions for the first time-in a two-day discussion of the reform of the Roman Curia, Francis announced in March with the announcement of a new constitution. The Roman Curia’s Francis shake-up seeks to bring the church back to its idyllic roots, allowing ordinary Catholics to lead the Vatican’s department, and creating a papal office for charitable work, among other reforms. To do.
Can you take the August calendar as a hint, as some of the media suggest? “At this stage, it’s a matter of being realistic and not alert,” Politi warned. He is scheduled to be completed in 2023, while the Episcopal Conference, a meaningful initiative for Francis to study how the Church moves forward in a more comprehensive way, is underway. Francis said it was “unimaginable” to resign.
Alberto Meloni, a Christian professor and secretary of the John XXIII Religious Science Foundation in Bologna, told AFP that he had made “ridiculous” speculations about the Pope’s health and his intentions. “These are the desires to understand and guess, but there is little to say,” he said. – AFP
