Francis tapped her to help organise the two-year consultation process of Catholics around the globe, known as a synod. That is welcome news to Sister Nathalie Becquart, one of the top women at the Vatican. In fact, all 20th-century popes died in their early 80s or younger, with the exception of Pope Leo XIII, who was 93 when he died in 1903.Įarly on in his pontificate, Francis predicted a short papacy of two or three years, and credited Benedict with having “opened the door” to future papal retirements.īut the Argentine Jesuit made clear after his July surgery that resigning “didn’t even cross my mind.” While enjoying robust health at the time, Benedict said he simply didn’t have the strength to carry on.īefore him, John Paul II died at age 84 and John Paul I died at 65 after just 33 days on the job. That may not have been the case, but if history were any guide, those priests might not have been wrong to have at least discussed the prospect.īenedict was 85 when he resigned in February 2013, becoming the first pope to step down in 600 years and paving the way for Francis’ election. “I know there were even meetings among priests who thought the pope was in worse shape than what was being said,” he told the Jesuits, in comments that were later published in the Vatican-approved Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica. Speaking with his fellow Jesuits in Slovakia in September, Francis confided that he knew his 10-day hospital stay in July for surgery to remove 33 cm (about 13 inches) of his large intestine had sparked momentum among conservative Catholics eager for a new pope. “Some wanted me dead,” Francis said of his critics. Francis said he needed to take action because Benedict’s 2007 decision to allow freer celebration of the old rite had divided the church and been exploited by conservatives.
(File/Reuters)īut if there was anything Francis did this past year that riled his critics, it was his July decision to reverse his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, and reimpose restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass.
A young boy approaches Pope Francis during his weekly general audience. “While celebrating his birthday, Vatican watchers are also looking for more concrete signs of compliance regarding the pope’s new rules, especially from those who report directly to him within the Vatican,” he said in an email, noting that a change in culture is needed alongside Francis’ new rules and regulations. Robert Gahl, director of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross’s Program of Church Management. “In the past year, Pope Francis has accelerated his efforts at reform by putting real teeth into the church’s canon law regarding finances,” said the Rev. He recently accepted the resignation of the Paris archbishop after a media storm alleging governance and personal improprieties. Since his last birthday, Francis ordered a 10 per cent pay cut for cardinals across the board, and slashed salaries to a lesser degree for Vatican employees, in a bid to rein in the Vatican’s 50-million-euro (USD57 million) budget deficit.įrancis also approved term limits for leaders of lay Catholic movements to try to curb their abuses of power, resulting in the forced removal of influential church leaders. Nice Guy.”Īfter spending the first eight years of his papacy gently nudging Catholic hierarchs to embrace financial prudence and responsible governance, Francis got tough, and appears poised to keep it that way. But Francis has responded with the papal equivalent of “no more Mr. (AP)īut Francis also is beset by problems at home and abroad and facing a sustained campaign of opposition from the conservative Catholic right. “What we’re seeing is the natural expression, the fruit of the seeds that he has sown.” Pope Francis appears with young oncologic patients on a balcony of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, July 11, 2021. Antonio Spadaro, one of Francis’ trusted Jesuit communications gurus.
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