Sitting on a white armchair placed far behind the altar, Pope Francis would have been, without the cameras, difficult to see by the 1,500 faithful gathered in the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré basilica, Thursday, July 28, for the great mass organized around Quebec. The visit of the head of the Catholic Church to Canada, from July 25 to 30, will remain the first where the Argentine pope was unable to celebrate the Eucharist himself.
Unable to take more than a few steps due to acute knee pain which has forced him to use a wheelchair since the beginning of May, François had to content himself with presiding over it and giving the homily. It had already been the same, Tuesday, in the Commonwealth stadium of Edmonton (Alberta), where 50,000 Catholics had come for him. In Quebec, he was also unable to walk up the aisle to the choir, before the ceremony with the other celebrants, a moment generally loved by the faithful, who can thus approach him.
This first trip, since his painful knee prevented him from walking, was a test for his state of form. Since he was forced to cancel his visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan on June 10, just three weeks before the planned departure, some observers have been speculating that he will soon waiver for health reasons. To cut short the rumours, François multiplied the interviews, in July.
A forthcoming resignation? “That never crossed my mind. Currently not “although that remains an option, he told Archyde.com news agency. “Right now, I don’t think the Lord asks me. When the Lord asks me, yes”, he added for Mexican television. He said he was suffering from a « petite fracture » knee, treated with laser and magnetotherapy, and that he felt “very limited” by this pathology.
Contrition and Repentance of the Church
While, in the first weeks, he was reluctant to show himself in his wheelchair, this one ended up imposing itself. During the trip, she even supplanted the popemobile twice – the open car he uses to cover a certain distance while being close to the crowd – originally planned. Monday, at Maskwacis, then Tuesday, at Lac Saint-Anne, it enabled him to walk head-on with the chiefs and “elders” of the First Nations, pushed by his butler.
In the end, it was not badly suited to these meetings intended to manifest the contrition and repentance of the Church and its closeness to the various indigenous communities, which all suffered from the treatment inflicted on 150,000 of their children in boarding schools run by congregations. Catholics.
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