The Pope asked to pray for 95-year-old Benedict XVI, whose health conditions are extremely weak, and noted that “he is very ill.”
The Vatican confirmed this Wednesday that in the last hours the state of health of the pope emeritus has worsened Benedict XVI “due to advancing age”, but “for the moment the situation is still under control” of the doctors.
“Regarding the health conditions of the pope emeritus, for whom the Pope Francisco asked for prayer at the end of the general audience this morning, I can confirm that in the last few hours there has been an aggravation due to the advancement of age,” reported the director of the Vatican press office, Matteo Bruni.
“The situation for the moment remains under control, constantly monitored by the doctors,” he added.
At the end of the general audience this Wednesday, Pope Francis went to the monastery where the pope emeritus resides to visit him, Bruni explained in a brief note.
Meanwhile, from the protected and hermetic convent Mater Ecclesiae, in the Vatican gardens, where Benedict XVI has lived apart since 2013 after his resignation, no information came out.
“I ask a special prayer for Pope Benedict XVI who is supporting the Church in silence and to remember that he is very ill and asking the Lord to comfort him and support him in that this testimony of love for the Church until the end”said the Argentine pontiff during the general audience.
The last photograph of the emeritus was published on December 1 by the Joseph Ratzinger Foundationwhen the pope emeritus received at his residence the two personalities awarded with the Ratzinger Prize, the French biblical scholar Michel Fédou and the Jewish jurist Joseph Weiler.
As in the last images, Benedict was seen sitting on the sofa next to his faithful secretary, Georg Gänswein, and he appeared very thin, but attentive to the conversation.
All those who have visited him in recent months assure that Ratzinger speaks with a small voice, he doesn’t walk and he looks very fragile, but he is completely lucid.
In other recent photographs, he has been seen in a wheelchair in the Vatican gardens sunbathing a bit, which is, according to his closest circle, something common, because the emeritus pope maintains discipline despite his age.
He concelebrates mass at 7:30 local time and then listens to music on his sofa, while sometimes receiving visitors.
Last August he received the new cardinals who, together with Pope Francis, came to visit him.
He has spent the last few months in silence, except at the beginning of the year when he had to deal with the accusations of how he had managed some cases of priests accused of abusing minors when he was Archbishop of Munich and that had emerged in the report written by the German Church on pedophilia.
In a historic public statement, Benedict XVI stated: “I have had a great responsibility in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and mistakes that have occurred during the time of my mandate in the respective places.
Benedict XVI, the first pope to renounce the pontificate since the time of Gregory XII, at the beginning of the 15th century, has rarely left the leonine walls. Once to visit his inseparable brother in the hospital and in June 2020 when he traveled to Regensburg to see him again a few weeks before he died.