Pope Francis greets visitors gathered in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican to pray the Angelus August 18, 2024. Photo: CNS/Vatican Media Additional Reporting (KNA)
There is currently a lot of speculation in and around the Vatican. Only a few people know what the true state of the ailing Pope is. Now he is startling observers with a scheduled meeting – and awakening memories of Pope Benedict’s resignation.
Despite his unchanged critical state of health, Pope Francis continues to work in hospital. On Monday, he made a decision that would not have caused a stir under any other circumstances. But in view of the Pope’s serious illness, it is causing Vatican observers to sit up and take notice. And this is due to the resignation of his predecessor Benedict XVI almost exactly twelve years ago.
At the beginning of the week, Francis officially received two of his most important employees for the first time – the head of the Vatican Secretariat of State. For the Catholic world church, this is comparable to the German Chancellery. Its head, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, was accompanied by the “Minister of the Interior” Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra.
Usual appointment at an unusual time
The meeting became known a day later in connection with processes for planned beatifications and canonisations. The Pope must authorise certain steps in these processes, which often take decades, before they can continue. Before these role models of the Christian faith are released for veneration by the faithful through beatification or canonisation, the Pope meets with his cardinals, who then “nod” everything through. These meetings are called consistories.
So far, Francis has met with the cardinals twelve times on this occasion. These are “ordinary consistories”. The appointment of new cardinals also takes place during consistories. The Pope has held the latter ten times so far.
Benedict’s resignation out of the blue
However, one of these meetings, which is not spectacular in itself, went down in church history on 28 February 2013. At the end of a canonisation consistory, the German Pope surprised the cardinals present by announcing his renunciation of office – out of the blue and in Latin. He chose this setting because it most closely corresponds to the canonical requirements for the announcement of a papal resignation.
Now it is the seriously ill Francis who has announced in the clinic that he will “convene a consistory to deal with the next canonisations”. With Benedict’s resignation in mind, this decision is causing concern among employees and reporters. It is reinforced by the media discussion about a possible resignation by Francis. Cardinals have been commenting on this in interviews for days.
However, Francis has so far always rejected such a step. Just in case, at the beginning of his pontificate, he submitted a letter of resignation to the authority he summoned on Monday: Cardinal Secretary of State Parolin.
Despite a serious respiratory and lung infection, Francis continues to work. The consistory was not the only topic of the meeting with his close collaborators. This is because Francis usually discusses these matters directly with the person responsible for the Vatican Office for the Causes of Saints. In fact, the three men are likely to have discussed many decisions that are currently pending.
New commission to be set up
The number of personnel changes approved by the Pope and published daily in the bulletin of the Vatican press office is not decreasing. On Wednesday, the Vatican publishes the Pope’s decision to set up a commission for the acquisition of donations for the Vatican. The prepared papal addresses for the general audiences and Sunday noon prayers, which are not actually taking place at the moment due to the hospitalisation, are also being published without interruption. The Pope’s planned appointments are still only being cancelled “on sight”.
Tiredness of office looks different. And so there is currently little to suggest that the convened consistory will serve any purpose other than the preparation of canonisations. Incidentally, a date for the meeting has not yet been set.
The Vatican does not wish to comment on a possible relocation of the meeting with the cardinals from the Vatican to the Gemelli Clinic at present. The Pope’s current condition would probably not allow this either. He is said to remain critical but stable. The results of a computerised tomography scan are expected on Wednesday evening, which should provide information on the progress of his bilateral pneumonia.