Vatican City — Pope Francis revealed for the first
time in an interview Sunday that he had signed a resignation letter nearly a
decade ago should poor health prevent him from carrying out his duties.
اضافة اعلان
Francis — who turned 86 on Saturday — has said in the past
that he would step down from the papacy should health problems keep him from his
duties.
In Spanish newspaper ABC, the pontiff said he signed his
resignation letter and handed it over to the Vatican’s secretary of state,
Tarcisio Bertone, before that cardinal’s retirement in 2013.
“I signed the resignation and I told him, ‘In case of
medical impediment or whatever, here’s my resignation. You have it’,” the pope
said.
Asked by the interviewer whether he wanted that fact to be
known, Francis replied: “That’s why I’m telling you.”
He added that he didn’t know what Bertone subsequently did
with the letter.
Francis has been limited in his ability to walk by an
inoperable knee condition which has forced him to rely on a wheelchair in
recent months.
The pope has had to cancel or curtail activities several
times over the past year because of pain and in an interview in July he
acknowledged that he needed to slow down.
“I think that at my age and with this limitation, I have to
save myself a little bit to be able to serve the Church. Or, alternatively, to
think about the possibility of stepping aside,” he said.
Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, quit over failing
health in 2013. He now lives quietly in Vatican City.
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