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BERLIN, Oct 1: A top cardinal has called on the world’s one billion Roman Catholics to pray for Pope John Paul, who he said was in “a bad way”.
The ailing 83-year-old pontiff on Sunday put perhaps his last stamp on the group that will chose his successor, naming 31 new cardinals. Many of the new “princes” are from the developing world, boosting the chances of another non-Italian pope.
“He is in a bad way,” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the German head of the Vatican body that oversees doctrinal matters, was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
“We should pray for the Pope,” Ratzinger told Germany’s Bunte magazine in an interview conducted last Monday. The Polish pontiff is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and missed a general audience last week which the Vatican insisted was due to a “minor” intestinal problem.
An aide to the cardinal said it was amazing how the pontiff carried on.
“He can’t walk and stand anymore but he is a hero for the faithful. The fact that he doesn’t give up despite his illness makes him even more credible,” Ratzinger’s private secretary Georg Gaenswein told Bunte.
Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the pope probably took on too much, but it was not his job to stop him.
At the Vatican, the pope received several Filipino bishops and some Polish pilgrims on Tuesday and preparations were going ahead for his weekly general audience on Wednesday.
The increasingly frail pope was particularly weak earlier this month on a trip to Slovakia and needed help reading his sermons.
Gaenswein said the Pope would not stop travelling.
“When he is no longer allowed to travel, then dear God will come for him,” he was quoted as saying.
Ratzinger rejected suggestions he might make a good pope. Asked whether he could imagine a black pope succeeding Pope John Paul, Ratzinger said:
“Yes, why not? But I don’t think that will happen because of course the number of white cardinals is much bigger. But of course there are many excellent figures who are suited for this office among my black colleagues.”
Only six of the new cardinals appointed by the pope on Sunday were Italian. Pope John Paul became the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years when he was elected 25 years ago next month.
New entries from Mexico, Nigeria, Sudan, Brazil, Ghana, India, Vietnam and Guatemala boosted the possibility that the next pope may come from the developing world.
POPE NOT TO STEP DOWN: Another cardinal said on Wednesday the Pope had no intention of relinquishing the leadership of the Catholic Church, despite failing health.
“I don’t believe we are in a situation where he would step down, because we cannot say that the pope is unable to lead the Church,” Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina was quoted by the website www.Terra.cl as saying.
“His health is affected, but not to the point where he can no longer accomplish the most important acts of government,” said Medina, 76, who is reported to be close to the pope.
“I repeat. He is not incapable of governing,” he added in the interview, given Tuesday in Rome.
“His health is bad. We should pray for the pope,” said Ratzinger.
In his interview, Medina agreed that the pope’s health had “deteriorated”.
“But I have no information which allows me to believe that it is something serious. Simply the result of age and the ailments from which he suffers.”
“There is nothing to suggest that he is thinking of stepping down. He has repeated several times his wish to continue his mission.”
John Paul II, who this month marks the 25th anniversary of his pontificate, suffers from Parkinson’s disease and arthitis, a combination which has left him almost immobile.
He has seemed increasingly frail and weak since a visit to Slovakia last month, when he failed to complete a single address. —Reuters/AFP
