Pope grieves for three relatives
Family members died in a car accident. Francis says he may retire someday.
ROME — Pope Francis was “deeply saddened” to learn of the deaths of three relatives in a car crash Tuesday on a provincial highway in Argentina, the Vatican said.
An Argentine police official quoted by the Associated Press said the pope’s 38year-old nephew, Emanuel Bergoglio, was driving his wife and two children, a 2year-old and an 8-monthold, when the car hit the back of a truck. Bergoglio was hospitalized and his family was killed.
The family was reportedly returning to Buenos Aires after a holiday weekend when the crash occurred between the cities of Rosario and Cordoba.
“The pope has been informed of the tragic accident in Argentina involving family members, and he is deeply saddened,” the Vatican said in a statement. “He asks all those who share his grief to unite with him in prayer.”
In a candid discussion with reporters about his own mortality, Francis suggested Monday that he has just two or three years to live and may retire before then.
The 77-year-old pontiff made the comments during a conversation with reporters on his flight home from a five-day visit to South Korea.
Asked how he is coping with his massive popular appeal, Francis said, “I try to think of my sins, my mistakes, so as not to think that I am somebody. Because I know this will last a short time, two or three years, and then to the house of the Father.”
The pope acknowledged that his busy schedule had worn him down this year, recalling how he had pulled out of a visit to a Rome hospital in June. “Now I have to be a little more prudent,” Francis said.
He hinted that he might at some point follow the example of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, and retire. “Let us think about what he said,” Francis said of Benedict. “‘I have gotten old. I do not have the strength.’ It was a beautiful gesture of nobility, of humility and courage.”
“I would do the same,” he said. “I would pray, but I would do the same. He opened a door that is institutional, not exceptional.”
However, during talk of his planned trips — including possible stops in New York and Washington when he travels to Philadelphia next year — it became clear that Francis has no intention of slowing down soon.
He also said he was prepared to visit northern Iraq, though he added, “At the moment, it is not the best thing to do.”
On another matter, he said the way had been opened for elevating El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero to sainthood. Romero was shot by an assassin in 1980 as he celebrated Mass, and he remains a revered symbol among many Latin Americans. His canonization was long blocked, however, by conservative Popes John Paul II and Benedict, because Romero’s advocacy for the poor was linked to more liberal Catholic currents.
“The process was blocked in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ‘for prudence,’ it was said,” Francis said. “Now it is unblocked” and will follow the normal vetting process, he said. “It’s very important to move in haste.”
“There are no impediments,” Francis said.