Pope says that with frailty and age, he is in new phase of papacy

Pope Francis said on Saturday that his advancing age and his difficulty walking have ushered in a new, slower phase of his papacy and he repeated that he would be ready to resign one day if serious health problems prohibited him from running the Church.

“I don’t think I can continue doing trips with the same rhythm as before,” he said in answers to reporters’ questions aboard the plane returning to Rome from a week-long trip in Canada.

For the past few months Francis, 85, has been using a wheelchair, a cane or a walker because of knee pain caused by a fracture and inflamed ligaments.

He walked with a cane to the rear cabin where reporters travel, but sat in a wheelchair for the traditional 45-minute post-trip news conference, the first time he has done so on his 37 international trips since he was elected pope in 2013.

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