Pope Francis calls for special prayers for Benedict XVI on. The emeritus pope is very ill. Francis asked the faithful to think of the 95-year-old. At noon it was said that the condition had continued to deteriorate. According to a report, Benedikt has been suffering from breathing problems for a few days.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. According to his successor Francis, he is very ill. That’s what the current pontiff said at the end of the general audience in the Vatican, without first giving any further details. “I would like to ask you all a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who is silently supporting the Church: Think of him, he is very ill and ask the Lord to comfort him and to pray for him in this profession of love for the Church support to the end”. The Italian news agency Ansa reported, citing informed circles, that Benedikt had been worse for a few days and that he had had breathing problems before Christmas. So far there has been no official confirmation of this.
At noon, the spokesman for the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, announced that the state of health had deteriorated in the past few hours. However, he added that the situation was “under control for the moment”. Joseph Ratzinger is 95 years old. He renounced the papacy in 2013. Born in Bavaria, he had recently withdrawn almost entirely from the public. After today’s general audience, the Argentine visited the former pontiff at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican Gardens, where Benedict has lived in relative isolation since his resignation.
Rarely published photos showed him increasingly frail. In April, his longtime private secretary Georg Gänswein told Vatican News that Benedict was “of course physically relatively weak and frail, but very clear in his head” and “in good spirits”. At irregular intervals, Benedikt, who is looked after by Gänswein and nuns, also received visitors.
For 25 years before his election as Pope, he was the influential head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most important authority in the Papal States with a focus on the doctrine of the faith. In this capacity he was considered an uncompromising representative of the conservative wing in the Vatican. He disciplined followers of liberation theology in Latin America and thereby earned the reputation of “God’s Rottweiler”.
Most recently, allegations once again overshadowed the work of the former Pope: A report on sexual abuse presented in Munich accused Benedict of making serious mistakes in dealing with a pedophile priest during his time as Archbishop of Munich. In an emotional, personal letter, he then explained that mistakes had been made and he begged for forgiveness.
However, Francis’ statements came as a bit of a surprise. The Argentine is known for his often spontaneous comments. Vatican experts were divided as to whether Francis really meant that Benedict was seriously ill or whether he was just saying that he was very weak due to old age. It is not unusual for him to visit his predecessor in the monastery at Christmas. In a tweet, Francis later repeated the request to pray for Benedict. The fact that he was “very ill” was no longer in the post.
Independently of this, other clergymen also called on people to pray for Benedict. “I join Pope Francis’ call to prayer,” said Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference. “My thoughts are with the Pope Emeritus. I call on the faithful in Germany to pray for Benedict XVI,” added the Bishop of Limburg. The Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Reinhard Marx, said in the morning in Bad Tölz, Upper Bavaria, at the diocesan opening of the Carolinger Action 2023 that he knew the news about Benedict’s condition. “But for us, we are united in prayer.” He last saw Benedict, one of Marx’s predecessors in office, in person in September. Regensburg’s Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer reacted to the news from Rome with “great concern”.
