Suddenly the Pope is old
Some question how aging will affect his actions
• For much of his pontificate, Pope Francis, 84, has carried on at the pace of a much younger man. He eschews weekend breaks. He packs his mornings with meetings. He takes breakneck international trips — with day after day of pre-sunrise alarms — that often seem to leave his travelling party more exhausted than he is.
But this week, Francis was slowed to a halt, hospitalized for colon surgery to address a potentially painful bowel condition that is common among the elderly.
The Vatican says Francis is progressing well after a pre-scheduled operation. He ran a fever Wednesday night, but that had resolved by morning, and subsequent scans and exams did not detect an infection, the Vatican said.
Yet in Rome and in Catholic circles around the world, what is expected to be a weeklong hospitalization has served as a reminder that the Pope is reaching an age when people deal more frequently with health problems and become more vulnerable.
For some Catholics, this week’s events have brought urgency to a set of questions that previously seemed at a remove: questions about how Francis will manage his papacy as he nears the second half of his 80s; how long he’ll continue in the role; and whether he might one day step down.
Francis is nearly a decade past the point when Catholic bishops are asked to turn in their resignation letters. He has already been Pope for longer than Benedict XVI, and in December, he will turn 85. Since the beginning of the 1800s, only one Pope — Leo XIII — has reached age 86 while still in the chair.
Vatican watchers roundly agree that Francis is not close to stepping down, and instead may push into historic territory, at a time when humans — including popes — are living longer and longer.
But many also say Francis seems like he would be open to eventually resigning, as Benedict did, rather than holding on as a weakened or even incapacitated pontiff, as John Paul II did in the early 2000s.
The clues are many. In 2014, Francis said that Benedict — the first Pope to step down in 700 years — had “opened a door” for other pontiffs to follow suit. The next year, he said in an interview with a Mexican television channel that Benedict “should not be considered an exception,” and he predicted that his own tenure would be “short,” somewhere between two and five years.
The latter prediction has proved false: Francis has already been Pope for eight years.
Austen Ivereigh, a Francis biographer, said the Pope subscribes to the view that every pontiff going forward “should do the same” as Benedict.
“He believes that Benedict’s decision has changed the institution of the papacy,” Ivereigh said. “But I don’t see anything to indicate that he won’t be able to carry on for a few more years.”
Francis’s health has been remarkably good. Until this week, he had never been hospitalized in his years as pontiff, according to what is publicly known. He deals with sciatica, a painful leg and back condition, but regular physiotherapy has helped to keep it at bay.
He had part of one lung removed when he was a young man, and there had been concerns early in the pandemic about his risk of contracting the coronavirus. But Francis has now been vaccinated.
Francis has said he sleeps soundly for six hours per night and takes a 45-minute nap right after lunch. “I go to my room, take off my shoes and lie down fully dressed,” Francis said in an interview. “I sleep deeply, as if it were nighttime. And I get up feeling good: with a clear head and reinvigorated, as if it were morning again.”
Beyond the matter of his health, there are other reasons Francis seems inclined for now to remain Pope, insiders say. Some point to long-standing goals that he has yet to complete: a reorganization of the Roman Curia, or an attempted cleanup of financial corruption. Francis also has been handed an epochal challenge by the coronavirus pandemic, which he has termed as a moment for humankind to rethink its priorities.
I DON’T SEE ANYTHING TO INDICATE THAT HE WON’T BE ABLE TO CARRY ON FOR A FEW MORE YEARS.