Emeritus Pope Benedict is in poor physical condition and he is fading fast, reports say.
“Benedict is in a bad way” and “we won’t have him for much longer” according to a veteran Spanish Vatican reporter, Paloma Gomez Borrero.
Borrero has visited with Emeritus Pope in April and again late May in Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, inside the Vatican walls.
Back in April, Vatican Spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ, said he was saddened that Gomez-Borrero, whom he has known for many years, had begun to speculate on the former pope’s health after seeing him ‘looking tired’.
However Borrero’s May report echoes that of archbishop of Cologne, Germany, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, and a personal friend of Benedict, who also visited the Emeritus Pope in late April.
“I was shocked at how thin he had become,” Meisner said at the time.
“Mentally, he is quite fit, his old self. But he had halved in size.”
Vatican officials admit Benedict has weakened since stepping down, but continue to deny his physical condition has become critical.
Announcing his resignation in February, Pope Benedict caught the world’s attention by being first pope to resign in 600 years.
Church historian Fr Alistair Sear said there have not been many popes to resign, but those that have have not lived long after abdicating.
“Gregory XII didn’t even live long enough to see his successor named,” he said.
Rarely seen in public since his resignation, Benedict, however, is not invisibile to many catholics who keep him in their thoughts and prayers.
“He is in our prayers every day,” said Maria Paoloa Santo Stefano, part of a community of Sisters of Mercy nuns based in Rome.
“Pope John Paul suffered in public, and Benedict chose to suffer in private. But that does not make his mission less important and less brave,” she said.
Sources
- RNS
- Irish Central
- CNA
- Image: Daily News