Pope Francis: How his health is going

As Pope Francis When he entered the stage of the audience hall in Rome last Wednesday, visibly exhausted, hunched over and taking small steps, he was greeted by minutes of standing applause and shouts of “Viva il Papa” from the hall. Despite his lung and respiratory illness, the 86-year-old pontiff appeared to the faithful at the general audience, which was moved from St. Peter’s Square indoors to the Aula Paolo VI to protect the patient from cold air. “I’m not feeling well yet with this flu,” Francis said. “My voice isn’t pretty yet.”

A sigh of relief goes through the ranks. The Pope looks pale, still dazed from the antibiotic infusions, and his speech is interrupted by frequent throat clearing. But he’s back. The Roman Curia was in a state of excitement for days between fear and hope after Francis had to be hospitalized on Saturday with suspected pneumonia. Francis will be 87 years old on December 17th. How will the man survive his third hospital stay this year? That’s what you asked yourself Vatican just like on the streets of Rome.

An early resignation? Not an option for this Pope

“We don’t have all the information, but it looks like Francis is suffering from cyclical crises, from which he has so far always recovered, even if he is very vulnerable,” says Vatican expert Marco Politi. Pneumonia had already forced the Pope into hospital at Easter. In June he had to go to the hospital again for an operation on his intestines. Some Vatican experts have already spoken secretly about the possibility of a resignation. “The Pope sees this pragmatically. He said that he will continue as long as he is able to do so. And at the moment it looks like that,” said Politi.

However, he had to cancel his historic trip to the world climate summit in Dubai. Francis would have been the first pope to attend a United Nations climate conference. Curbing global warming is a central theme of his pontificate. Already at the Paris Climate Conference in 2015, at which the participating states agreed to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, if possible, Francis sent an appeal for a global rethink. The Vatican also joined the agreement.

Now the sovereign of the Vatican State wanted to speak himself: He had prepared a sharp speech, a warning wake-up call to humanity. No church leader before him has intervened in public, international debates like Pope Francis. His voice carries weight on the international stage.

Succession is already being discussed in church circles – behind closed doors

Things look completely different at home. Since the frequent illnesses, resistance to the innovator Francis has flared up again behind the walls of the Vatican. The intrigues regarding the next papal election, the conclave, do not stop. “Conservatives and traditionalists have been trying for two years to prevent a second reform pope from coming after Francis and are trying to find supporters for a moderate successor,” says Politi. However, the majority ratio is very fluctuating: 30 percent ultra-conservatives, 30 percent reformers and 40 percent undecided. This group included disoriented clergy, some of whom sincerely did not know where they stood and were afraid of change, of the so-called “Protestantization,” explains Politi.

After all, it is about fundamental questions of the church such as the relaxation of Catholic sexual morality, the voluntary nature of celibacy, the admission of women to diakonia and the strengthening of the authority of bishops. According to Politi, it is no longer within the power of the Roman Curia to decide on this today. The outcome of the conflict will depend on the bishops’ conferences around the world. “What matters is which direction they will go.”

A civil war is raging within the church

“There is a civil war raging within the church,” says Politi. Modernizers against preservers, centralists against the universal church. The fight is more or less public, says Politi. Francis’ opponents attack him with sharp words and sometimes spread this on social media. But the Pope remains undeterred in his desire for reform. He doesn’t have much time to set the course he wants.

It was only in October that Francis called the bishops to the world synod in Rome. Politi calls it a “mini-council”, something like a small revolution. There were also women who had the right to vote for the first time in 1,700 years of church history, emphasizes Politi. The second part of the synod is scheduled to take place in October 2024. The direction of the Catholic Church will then be codified in a final document: the relationship between the church as a community and as a hierarchy; the participation and participation, i.e. the co-determination of the Catholic laity; the mission or how the church positions itself towards the world.

Francis continues to interfere

“Today the Pope can no longer decide everything on his own; he needs the support and approval of the bishops’ conferences,” says Politi. But sometimes he breaks with this principle and breaks new ground on his own. If he wants to admit homosexual people into the church as God’s children or allow divorced and remarried couples to attend mass. But he speaks for himself personally, not on behalf of the church.

Despite his fragile health and recurring illnesses, Francis has lost neither the courage nor the strength to, on the one hand, stand out as a modernizer with direct statements in his speeches and, on the other hand, to vigorously strengthen the bishops’ conferences worldwide so that they can act as a counterweight to Rome’s Curia and say where they are going Church should go in the future.