ROME — As he recovers from pneumonia in the hospital, Pope Francis has increasingly handed off his day-to-day responsibilities to cardinals as questions swirl about the near and long-term future of his papacy.
On Saturday, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, took Francis’ place to celebrate Mass for an anti-abortion group. On Sunday, another Vatican official, Cardinal Michael Czerny, is stepping in for the pope to celebrate a Holy Year Mass for volunteers.
There is no reason why such delegation of papal obligations can’t continue, especially since Francis remains conscious and working from the hospital. And on Saturday, his doctors reported a “gradual, slight improvement” in his condition. But the 88-year-old pope has spoken about the possibility of resignation, though his position has changed over time, especially after the death of Pope Benedict XVI. Here’s what Francis has said about pope’s retiring, in his own words:
On Benedict’s resignation:
In his 2024 memoir, “Life: My Story Through History,” Francis recounted how he first learned about Benedict’s resignation, the first in 600 years. He said that a Vatican journalist had called him in Buenos Aires on Feb. 11, 2013, and told him the news as it was breaking.
“For a moment I was paralyzed. I could hardly believe what I was hearing,” Francis wrote in the memoir. “This was news I had never expected to receive in my lifetime: the resignation of a pope was unimaginable, although it was provided for in canon law. In the first few moments I said to myself, ‘I must have misunderstood, it’s not possible.’ But then I understood that Benedict had surely meditated and prayed for a long time before making this brave and historic decision. Faced with his declining strength, he had evidently realized that the only irreplaceable element in the Church is the Holy Spirit, and the only Lord is Jesus Christ. This is why he was a great pope, humble and sincere, who loved the church until the end.”
During the decade they lived together in the Vatican as a reigning and retired pope, Francis repeatedly praised Benedict’s courage and humility for resigning and said that he had “opened the door” to future popes also stepping down.
On the chance he might follow:
In a 2022 interview with Spain’s ABC daily, Francis revealed that he had written a letter of resignation soon after he was elected pontiff. The letter laid out his resignation if medical problems impeded him from carrying out his duties or from freely announcing a resignation.
The text of the letter hasn’t been released and it’s not known what sort of medical impairment or lack of consciousness might trigger a resignation. Canon law has no provision for what to do if a pope is permanently impaired, and canonists are divided on whether a prewritten letter of resignation would be valid.
Canon 332.2 says that for a pope to resign his office, “it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.”
Francis referred the existence of his resignation letter as recently as last year. But in his memoir, which was published a year ago this month, Francis said that he had no plans to resign and was, at least at that time, enjoying good health.
“But this is, I repeat, a distant possibility, because I truly do not have any cause serious enough to make me think of resigning,” he said. “Some people may have hoped that sooner or later, perhaps after a stay in the hospital, I might make an announcement of that kind, but there is no risk of it: Thanks be to God, I enjoy good health, and as I have said, there are many projects to bring to fruition, God willing.”
And what changed after Benedict died:
Benedict died Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95.
In his first interview with The Associated Press after the death, Francis again repeated that Benedict had opened up the possibility of future retired popes. He repeated that if he were to follow, he would live outside the Vatican in a home for retired priests in the diocese of Rome and be referred to as the “emeritus bishop of Rome” as opposed to “emeritus pope.”
Francis said Benedict’s decision to live in a converted monastery in the Vatican Gardens was a “good intermediate solution,” but that future retired popes might want to do things differently.
But a few weeks later, speaking to Congolese and South Sudanese priests, Francis changed tune. Freed from Benedict’s presence, Francis pointed out the risks that papal resignations might become the norm. He repeated that he had written a letter of resignation, but made clear that the papacy was for life.
“I did it in case I have some health problem that prevents me from exercising my ministry and I am not fully conscious in order to resign,” he said, according to the closed-door comments reported by the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica.
“However, this doesn’t mean that resigning popes should become, let’s say, a ‘fashion,’ or a normal thing. Benedict had the courage to do it because he didn’t feel like going on because of his health. I for the moment do not have that on my agenda. I believe that the pope’s ministry is ad vitam (for life). I see no reason why it shouldn’t be so. The ministry of the great patriarchs is always for life. And historical tradition is important.”
“If, on the other hand, we listen to the gossip well, then we should change popes every six months!”
