Pope Francis has had no choice but to postpone his upcoming trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan due to serious knee problems. The trip, initially scheduled between July 2 and 7, has been postponed to a date yet to be defined on the advice of his doctors and to “not spoil the results of the therapies on the knee, which is still going on” , the Vatican reported this Friday.
It is highly unusual for the Holy See to cancel a trip on short notice, less than a month before departure. The Vatican already had everything prepared, it had even published the list of journalists who were going to fly on the papal plane and a detailed program of this six-day visit in which he was to visit a displaced persons camp in South Sudan. For now, the trip to Canada is still scheduled for the end of July.
Francisco, 85 years old, lives one of the most complicated moments of his pontificate. His knee pain in his right knee causes such severe pain that he is forced to use a wheelchair and give up saying some masses. He has told some people close to him that he doesn’t want to have surgery, apparently because of his reaction to the anesthesia when he had colon surgery in July last year.
His health problems have caused great speculation about a possible resignation of the pontificate by the Argentine pope. The rumors have increased after announcing an unprecedented consistory to create new cardinals, in August, and a visit to L’Aquila, the city where Celestine V, the first pope who resigned from the throne of Saint Peter, is buried in 1294. In 2009, Benedict XVI visited the earthquake-ravaged city and prayed at Celestine’s tomb, and four years later he shocked the world by resigning from the papacy because he no longer had the physical or mental strength to continue.
Bergoglio has always made it clear that Benedict’s case would not be the only one and has left the door open to follow in his footsteps. However, the lucubrations about an imminent resignation due to his mobility problems are “a cheap soap opera,” according to what Honduran Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Madariaga, a close collaborator, told Efe. The commotion, he has assured, is “fake news” that comes from countries like the US where there is “strong opposition” to this pontificate. The trip to L’Aquila was planned for a long time, he has added.
In the Vatican, everyone takes it for granted that, after more than nine years since his election in 2013, Francis’ pontificate is already in its last phase after he has promulgated his Constitution that seals his reforms in the curia. But they are also clear that Francis will never resign as long as Benedict XVI lives, since he would also want to regulate the role of popes emeritus from now on so that there can be a more organic coexistence than has been in these years.
The announcement of a new expansion of the College of Cardinals has aroused great interest because in August, when the Pope creates new cardinals, there will already be 132 under 80 years of age and, therefore, voters in an upcoming conclave. The list of cardinals who will participate in the election of the next pontiff is already being outlined. And 83 of them, 62%, have so far been chosen by Francis, giving priority to countries on the periphery of Catholicism.
