Pope: If health condition deteriorates, I will resign  

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – Pope Francis says he feels ‘old’ and ‘a little ashamed’ by having to use a wheelchair.

In interview with Swiss state radio and television, the Pope said he will resign if he no longer has the mental clarity to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

The Pope said he felt humiliated by having to use a wheelchair as a result of acute pain in his knee.

Pope Francis said he will resign if he gets too tired and no longer has the mental clarity to lead the Roman Catholic Church, in remarks made ahead of the tenth anniversary of his election.

Francis, who is 86, said he feels “old” and humiliated by having to use a wheelchair as a result of acute pain in his knee.

In comments which will fuel speculation about when or if the Argentinian pontiff might voluntarily step down, he said he has “less physical strength” than he did when he was elected a decade ago as the successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

If he began to feel too much “tiredness” or a lack of mental acuity, then he could follow the example of Benedict and resign from the papacy, he said.

Pope Benedict, who died on Dec 31 aged 95, became the first pontiff to resign in about 600 years when he stepped down in 2013.

Asked what would lead him to make the same decision to resign, Francis said: “A tiredness that doesn’t make you see things clearly. A lack of clarity, of knowing how to evaluate situations.”

He said he felt a little “ashamed” to have to use a wheelchair on trips abroad and for public appearances in St Peter’s Square.

“I am old. I have less physical resistance, the knee (problem) was a physical humiliation, even if the recovery is going well now,” he said.

Francis’ remarks were in keeping with previous comments he has made about the prospect of resignation, said Austen Ivereigh, a Vatican expert who has written a biography of the Argentinian pope.

“He has always said that Benedict’s decision changed the papacy so that every pope from now on should ask the same questions about their ability to go on,” he told The Telegraph.

“He is saying that if he became too old or frail or could no longer think clearly, that would be a good reason to step down. Or if he developed a degenerative condition for which there is no cure, for example.

“But he has also said that he takes very seriously the ‘ad vitam’ commitment of popes because it gives stability – it avoids the infighting and jostling for power that you might have among potential successors. I think he is saying that he is fine to carry on for now.”

Asked in the interview about the war in Ukraine, Francis said the conflict was driven by the interests of competing “empires”, in remarks which are likely to prove controversial.

“There are imperial interests, not just those of the Russian empire, but of empires from elsewhere,” Francis said.

“The great powers are all involved. The field of battle is Ukraine.”

He said he had met Vladimir Putin, considered him a “cultured man” and would be willing to talk to him if that could help bring about an end to the war.

The conflict has become a profitable business in which the arms industry sells billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and can observe how they perform on the battlefields of Ukraine, he said.

“I think it’s hard for Westerners to grasp when he says things like this,” said Mr Ivereigh, the author of The Great Reformer – Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope.

“He’s coming at this not from a Western perspective but the perspective of the developing world, the global south. This not about moral equivalence. He knows Russia is the aggressor.

“But he is deeply sceptical about the way in which the war has developed and thinks no one is really trying to secure peace. He thinks there is so much money invested in the arms industry that it creates a logic to use those weapons.”