Pope Francis is ready to retire

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30th Jul, 2022. 04:53 pm
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Pope Francis has stated that he is willing to quit.
The 85-year-old pontiff has been using a wheelchair due to knee pain.
His knee pain was caused by a fracture and inflamed ligaments.

Pope Francis has stated that he is willing to quit if serious health issues prevent him from leading the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis has stated that his advanced age and difficulty walking have signalled the beginning of a new, slower period of his papacy.

“I don’t think I can continue doing trips with the same rhythm as before,” the 85-year-old pope told reporters while returning to Rome from a trip to Canada.

The pontiff had travelled to Canada to apologise for the Catholic Church’s participation in the mistreatment of indigenous children in schools.

He has been utilising a wheelchair, cane, or walker for the past few months due to knee pain caused by a fracture and inflamed ligament.

“I think that at my age and with this limitation I have to preserve myself a bit in order to be able to serve the Church, or decide to step aside,” Francis said.

He has previously stated that he may follow in the footsteps of Pope Benedict, who became the first pope in 600 years to resign rather than govern for life in 2013.

“It’s not strange. It’s not a catastrophe. You can change the pope,” he said.

“The door is open. It is one of the normal options. Up until today, I did not use that door. I did not think it was necessary to think of this possibility but that does not mean that the day after tomorrow I don’t start thinking about it.”

He added: “This trip was a bit of a test. It is true that I can’t make trips in this condition. Maybe the style has to change, make fewer trips, make the trips I have promised to make, re-jig things. But it will be the Lord who decides. The door is open.”

During his visit to Canada, Pope Francis wore an indigenous feathered headdress before declaring that forced assimilation of native peoples into Christian society ruined their customs and severed their families.

He apologised for Christian support of the “colonising mentality” of the times” and added: “With shame and unambiguously, I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the indigenous peoples.”

From the nineteenth century through the 1970s, more than 150,000 native children in Canada were compelled to attend state-funded Christian schools in an effort to remove them from the influence of their homes and cultures in order to “Christianize” and assimilate them into mainstream society.

Pope Francis is ready to retire

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