After a few hours of fear and uncertainty, the Vatican has released positive news on Benedict XVI’s health. announced. “The Pope Emeritus recovered well last night, he is perfectly lucid and awake, and today his condition, while still serious, is stable,” said Matteo Bruni, spokesman for the Holy See.
Pope Francis caused a stir in the Catholic Church on Wednesday when he said his predecessor was “very ill”. Many had interpreted the statements to the effect that the 95-year-old Benedict could possibly be dying.
Francis continues to invite the faithful to pray for Benedict “in these difficult hours,” Bruni said. Many Catholics in several parts of the world responded to this request. Bishops and cardinals from North and South America, France, Belgium and of course Germany said they would pray for the former pontiff. German visitors to Rome also said on Thursday near St. Peter’s Basilica that they were praying for Benedict. Some were sad that Benedict was apparently doing badly.
Benedict is constantly monitored
Born Joseph Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Papa Emeritus is cared for in the former Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican Gardens. With him are his longtime companion and private secretary Georg Gänswein, doctors and women from a Catholic lay organization. Benedict is constantly monitored, as it was said.
There were initially no further official details on the state of health. It was already known that the German is physically very weak and has difficulties speaking. The Vatican did not comment or confirm media reports that he was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe and that important vital functions such as the heart had been declining for a few days.
Benedict was Pope from 2005 to 2013 before he decided to retire from the pontifical office. Before that, the German, known as a brilliant theologian, was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and thus the supreme guardian of the faith of the Catholics for more than two decades.
Many critics accuse him of not having sufficiently opened up the church through his conservative attitude. In addition, the revelations about abuse scandals – for example during the time as archbishop in Munich and Freising – cast a shadow over his vita.
