by Anura Guruge
on January 24, 2023
This will be the 4th year in a row that Pope Francis has opted for a private Lenten retreat. The pope going to a Lenten retreat, away from Rome, with the heads of the Vatican dicasteries was a fond, much anticipated tradition started by Pope Pius XI (1922 — 1939). So, it is a practice going back close to a century.
That the pope, because of COVID, opted for a private retreat in 2022 & 2021 is understandable.
In 2020 he stayed back because he was suffering from a bad cold — & COVID was beginning to raise its ugly head.
Obviously this year the impediment, indubitably, also has to be health. And that is what makes you — or more to the point I — start to wonder.
Is the pope slowly getting ready to announce his retirement?
Yes, there was plenty of talk & speculation on this matter last year — some of it prompted by the pope himself.
But all of us with some understanding of the papacy & the Vatican knew that Francis would not retire while ex-pope Benedict XVI was still alive. Having two ex-popes would have been too much for the Church.
But, now Benedict XVI is gone — & the one month anniversary will be next week.
Benedict XVI resigned on February 28, 2013.
February 28 is just 5 weeks away.
I sure hope he doesn’t retire on February 28.
That will create a terrible precedent, February 28 becoming the accepted day for contemporary popes to retire.
I get a feeling Francis is discouraged by his health. He isn’t the happy fellow he was in 2013. The papacy has taken its toll on him.
We just have to wait & see.
