While the Pope is still hospitalized, speculation is well from a potential resignation. Some details question.
Admitted for more than ten days to the hospital, Pope Francis suffers from pneumonia of the two lungs and is in a “critical but stationary state”, according to the Vatican this Wednesday, February 26. He continued from the hospital his functions: the Holy See explained that he received close collaborators, signed documents and made calls. This fragile health feeds speculation as to a possible resignation from the Pope. This is what his predecessor Benoit XVI did in 2013, no longer feeling to play his role. Before the latter, we must go back to Pope Grégoire XII who had left his functions in 1415. Canon law allows, in fact, a renunciation of the Pope, as long as it is “freely and duly manifested”, that is to say Say without external pressure.
According to Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, with Italian radio RTLthe sovereign pontifies “could decide to resign if he was in a situation where his ability to have direct contact, to communicate immediate, incisive and decisive way was compromised”. Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco wanted to moderate, with the same media, and considered that there was, according to him, no question to ask a possible resignation: “It seems to me that there is No reason to speak or think of the resignation of the Pope “. Cardinal Fernández, said, for his part, with Naciondo not observe “pre-conclave atmosphere” or “more conversations on a possible successor than a year ago”.
For his part, Pope Francis assured that we govern “with the head and not the legs”. He would also like to hold until the end of the jubilee: this current event takes place every 25 years in the Vatican and attracts thousands of Catholics who make a pilgrimage to Rome. It is a privileged moment of conversion, forgiveness and remission of sins. It will last until January 6, 2026.
A letter of resignation already signed and an important meeting
Pope Francis, however, already signed, shortly after his election in 2013, a letter of resignation if his health ever came to prevent him from exercising. For two big names from the Cardinaux College,, Jean-Marc Aveline de Marseille and Juan José Omella Omella de Barcelona, ”everything is possible”, as reported Repubblicaespecially since hospitalization extends and the Pope is 88 years old. The words of these two relatives of the Pope prove that the option is on the table, even if it would only materialize if the health of the Pope remains permanently degraded.
According to RCFPope Francis spoke this February 25 with the cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and the substitute of the Secretary of State Mgr Edgar Peña Parra, numbers 2 and 3 of the Vatican, for the canonization of the blessed José Greorio Hernández Cisneros and Bartolo Longo. A consistory, assembly of cardinals, should also be organized soon in the same perspective. If the official reason seems clear, certain details question as the absence of the prefect of the dicastery for the causes of the saints and the cardinal Marcello sowing with which the pope usually deals with canonizations. It also recalls that it was during a consistory that Benoit XVI had announced his resignation.