Former pope Benedict (95), who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to step down, is “very sick,” his successor Pope Francis said on Wednesday.
“I would like to ask all of you for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the church,” Francis said in a surprise announcement in Italian at the end of his weekly general audience.
“Let us remember him, he is very sick, asking the Lord to console and sustain him in this witness of love for the church, until the end,” Francis said, speaking in Italian.
Matteo Bruni, a Vatican spokesman, said in a statement that, after the audience, Francis had visited Benedict at the monastery on Vatican City grounds where Benedict has lived since announcing his resignation in February 2013. Benedict was the first pope in six centuries to step down. Increasingly frail, he has rarely made public appearances in recent years.
Bruni said that Benedict’s health had “deteriorated in recent hours due to advancing age”. The situation, he added, was “under control at the moment, and was constantly monitored by doctors”.
When he resigned nearly 10 years ago, Benedict had cited his declining health, both “of mind and body”. He had said that “due to an advanced age,” his strengths were “no longer suited to an adequate exercise” of leading the church, which had led to his decision to resign freely “for the good of the church”.
Since then, he has mostly stepped back from public life, dedicating himself to prayer and meditation.
Until a few weeks ago, those who had seen Benedict said his body was very frail but his mind was still sharp.
One of the latest known photographs of Benedict was taken on December 1st, when he met the winners of a prize for theologians named after him. He was seated and looked exceptionally weak.
Since his resignation Benedict has been living in a former convent inside the Vatican gardens, with his secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, and a few other aides and medical staff.
Benedict announced his intention to resign on February 11th, 2013, shocking a meeting of cardinals. He said he no longer had the physical and mental strength to run the Church.
He formally stepped down on February 28th that year, moving temporarily to the papal summer residence south of Rome while cardinals from around the world came to Rome to choose his successor.
Church leaders joined Pope Francis on Wednesday in praying for the retired pope. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, said that Benedict’s post-papacy decision to accompany the church with prayer and reflection “was a strong message for the ecclesiastical community and the whole of society”.
Francis, the first pope from Latin America, was elected to succeed him on March 13th, 2013.
While Francis has often praised the former pope, saying it was like having a grandfather in a home, the presence of two men dressed in white in the Vatican was at times troublesome.
Conservatives looked to the former pope as their standard bearer and some ultra-traditionalists even refused to acknowledge Francis as a legitimate pontiff.
Benedict, the first German pope in 1,000 years, was elected on April 19th, 2005, to succeed the widely popular pope John Paul II, who reigned for 27 years.
Cardinals chose him from among their number seeking continuity and what one called "a safe pair of hands".
For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was the powerful head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, then known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. – Reuters