Concern for Benedict XVI: According to his successor Francis, the emeritus pope is "very ill". Francis asked all Catholic believers on Wednesday for a "special prayer" for the 95-year-old, who has been physically weak for a long time.
"Think of him, he is very ill. And ask the Lord to comfort and support him in this testimony of love for the Church - to the end," he said at the end of the general audience in the Vatican.
Permanently monitored by doctors
The spokesman for the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, then announced that Benedict's health had deteriorated in the past few hours due to his advanced age. But the situation is “under control for the moment”. The pope is constantly monitored by doctors, he said. Pope Francis visited Benedict immediately after the general audience.
Born in Bavaria, Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected successor to John Paul II in 2005, was the first German pope in almost 500 years. Benedikt's longtime companion and personal assistant Georg Gänswein did not initially respond to inquiries. The archbishop and nuns have been caring for Benedict for years in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican Gardens, where the pope emeritus has lived in relative isolation since his resignation in 2013.
Most recently, it was said again and again that Benedict was physically weak and could hardly speak. "Stable in weakness," Gänswein said regularly about the physical condition of Papa Emeritus. Mentally, however, Benedikt was still fit, it was said. He also received visitors at irregular intervals.
"The situation is certainly very serious"
The Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Reinhard Marx, said in Bad Tölz, Upper Bavaria, at the diocesan opening of the carol singers' campaign in 2023 that he knew the news about Benedict's condition. "But for us, we are united in prayer." He last saw Benedict in September.
"The situation is certainly very serious," said Benedict's longtime companion and theologian Wolfgang Beinert. "But for a man approaching 100, that's not surprising." Until the beginning of the year, he still had correspondence with Benedict, said the emeritus professor of theology. However, he did not reply to a letter on his birthday in April.
From the point of view of Benedict's biographer Peter Seewald, the current reports are "certainly very worrying". He last saw him in October, said the author of the German Press Agency. A last letter showed that he was completely mentally clear. Benedict himself has been longing for his "homecoming" for a long time.
Benedict - who, according to his own statements, did not want to become pope himself - did not have it easy as the successor to the charismatic Pole Karol Wojtyla, the "Pope of the Century" John Paul II. The shy intellectual had not found a connection to many believers. When he was in office for five years, the Catholic Church fell into one of its most serious crises: from 2010, decades of child abuse and cover-ups gradually came to light.
