Pope frail on 85th birthday but not set to quit

Pope Benedict XVI marks two milestones this week, and while his health appears stable, signs of frailty have again prompted speculation over whether he will be the first pontiff in seven centuries to resign.

Benedict, one of the oldest popes in history, turns 85 today, and on Thursday he marks the seventh anniversary of his election as successor to the immensely popular John Paul II.

Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square yesterday, he noted Thursday’s anniversary and asked for prayers “so that the Lord may give me the strength to carry out the mission he has entrusted to me”.

Benedict is older than John Paul was when he died in 2005 and is the oldest reigning pope since Leo XIII, who died aged 93 in 1903.

“His health at 85 is better than John Paul’s was at 75,” said one high-ranking Vatican official who reports to the pope regularly. “He is a very methodical man. He looks after himself and feels he still has much to do.”

The Vatican has announced he will visit Lebanon in September, and he may go to Brazil in 2013. Still, Benedict is increasingly showing signs of frailty.

Last year, to conserve his strength, he began using a mobile platform instead of walking up the aisle of St Peter’s Basilica.

Where Benedict differs from his predecessors is that he is the only pope in living memory to discuss publicly the possibility of resignation, though others have done so privately. In a book in 2010, Benedict said he would not hesitate to become the first pontiff to resign willingly in more than 700 years if he felt no longer able, “physically, psychologically and spiritually” to run the Catholic Church.