Pope Francis revealed in an interview published Sunday that he had drafted a resignation letter in case health issues prevented him from fulfilling his duties soon after being elected pontiff in 2013, according to the Guardian.
It can be recalled on February 28, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI, 95, formally resigned less than three weeks after announcing his resignation. No one saw this coming, really, because no one had resigned from the position since Gregory XII in 1415.
Pope Francis I (Jorge Mario Bergoglio), 86, was then elected pope on March 13, 2013, the second day of the 2013 papal conclave.
When asked in an interview about what would happen if illness or an accident caused a pope to be unable to perform his duties, Francis responded that he had “already signed my renunciation” to the Spanish newspaper ABC.
“I signed it and said: ‘If I should become impaired for medical reasons or whatever, here is my resignation. Here you have it,”’ the globalist Pope told ABC.
“In practice there is already a rule,” he said.
The Guardian reported:
Francis, who had bowel surgery in 2021 and has been affected by knee pain that for months forced him use a wheelchair, said he had given the note to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who then was the Vatican secretary of state.
The pontiff, who turned 86 on Saturday, quipped that now that he had revealed the existence of his resignation note, “someone will run up to Bertone [saying] ‘Give me that piece of paper.’” He added he was sure Bertone would have passed on the letter to the current secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
In past remarks, Francis has hailed the decision of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI to resign because he felt due to advancing age he would not be best able to carry out his duties. Benedict, who is living in a monastery on the Vatican’s grounds, was the first pontiff to resign in 600 years, and his stepping down paved the way for Francis’s election as the first pope from South America.
Francis in the interview played down his mobility issues, saying: “One governs with the head, not the knee.” He has increasingly used a cane instead of a wheelchair to get around in public.
Catholic church law requires a papal resignation be “freely and properly manifested” – as was the case when Benedict startled the world when he announced his resignation to a gathering of prelates at the Vatican in February 2013.
Recently, the Vatican was under intense scrutiny after it dismissed Fr. Frank Pavone, a well-known pro-life activist and national director of the organization Priests for Life, from the clerical state for “blasphemous communications on social media.”
Also, Pope Francis lamented the harrowing conditions facing the people of Ukraine during his weekly General Audience address and called on his attendees to spend less of their paychecks on Christmas gifts. Instead, he said more money should go to one of Earth’s most corrupt nations.