May 5, 2022:
Pope Francis uses wheelchair in public for the first time
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/pope-francis-uses-wheelchair-in-public-for-the-first-timeJune 5, 2022:
Pope Francis fuels speculation on future as mobility issues confine him to a wheelchair
Italian and Catholic media have been rife with unsourced speculation that the 85-year-old might be planning to follow in Benedict’s footsteps, given the increased mobility problems that have forced him to use a wheelchair for the last month.Those rumours gathered pace last week when Francis announced a consistory to create 21 new cardinals scheduled for August 27. Sixteen of those cardinals are under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect his successor.Once they are added to the ranks of princes of the church, Francis will have filled the College of Cardinals with 83 of the 132 voting-age cardinals. While there is no guarantee how they might vote, the chances that they will tap a successor who shares Francis’s pastoral priorities become ever greater.In announcing the August 27 consistory, Francis also said he would host two days of talks the following week to brief the cardinals about his recent apostolic constitution reforming the Vatican bureaucracy.That docuмent, which goes into effect on Sunday, allows women to head Vatican offices, imposes term limits on priestly Vatican employees and positions the Holy See as an institution at the service of local churches, rather than vice versa.
Francis was elected Pope in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Roman Curia. Now that the nine-year project has been rolled out and at least partially implemented, his main task has in some ways been accomplished.
All of which made Saturday’s otherwise routine announcement of a pastoral visit to L’Aquila carry more speculative weight than it might otherwise have.The timing was notable: the Vatican and the rest of Italy are usually on holiday in August to mid-September, with all but essential business closed. Calling a major consistory in late August to create new cardinals, gathering churchmen for two days of talks on implementing his reform and making a symbolically significant pastoral visit suggests Francis might have out-of-the-ordinary business in mind.Vatican commentator Robert Mickens, linking to an essay he had published in La Croix International about the rumours swirling around the future of the pontificate, tweeted: “With today’s news that @Pontifex will go to L’Aquila in the very middle of the August consistory, it all got even more intriguing.”
The basilica in L’Aquila hosts the tomb of Celestine V, a hermit pope who resigned after five months in 1294, overwhelmed by the job. In 2009, Benedict visited L’Aquila, which had been devastated by a recent earthquake and prayed at Celestine’s tomb, leaving his pallium stole on it.
No-one at the time appreciated the significance of the gesture. But four years later the 85-year-old Benedict would follow in Celestine’s footsteps and resign, saying he no longer had the strength of body and mind to carry on the rigours of the papacy.
More:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/pope-francis-fuels-speculation-on-future-as-mobility-issues-confine-him-to-a-wheelchair-3720117
Topic: Pope Francis in wheelchair + "retiring"? + 21 new cardinals on aug 27 (Read 2246 times)