Cardinal addresses question of papal resignation

A senior Vatican official has responded to a sensitive question that many Roman Catholics have been asking: Would ailing Pope John Paul II ever consider stepping down?

“Let’s leave that hypothesis up to the Pope’s conscience,” said the Holy See’s No. 2, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, in answer to a reporter’s query.

Sodano expressed hope that John Paul II – hospitalised for a week with flu and breathing troubles – would surpass Pius IX’s 32 years in office, the longest papacy. Still, he surprised some observers by not ruling out a resignation, which could indicate there is debate within the Vatican on the issue.

Popes may resign but cannot be forced to do so.

“If there is a man who loves the Church more than anybody else, who is guided by the Holy Spirit, if there is a man who has marvellous wisdom, that’s him. We must have great faith in the Pope. He knows what to do,” said Sodano, the Vatican’s secretary of state, who is often mentioned as a possible papal successor.

John Paul II, 84 years old and in his 27th year as pontiff, has repeatedly said he has no intention of abdicating.

On Sunday, in remarks read out by an archbishop, the Pope appeared to reassert his ability to carry on by saying that even in the hospital “I can continue to serve the church and the whole of humanity.”

In 1994, after hip replacement surgery, he joked with his surgeon about the church law that would let him resign if he becomes incapacitated.

“Doctor, neither you nor I have any choice. You have to cure me because there is no room for a pope emeritus,” he said at the time.

On Monday, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls declined to comment on Sodano’s remarks, which caused a stir in Italy and are front-page news today.

The spokesman told reporters that the Pope continued to get better a week after his emergency admission to the Gemelli Polyclinic, but that “his doctors have advised him to stay a few more days”.

Navarro-Valls refused to be pinned down on a discharge date for the Pope, who is also weakened by Parkinson’s disease. “Doctors have suggested several more days,” he said.

Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda, prefect of a Vatican tribunal, said today the Pope could continue to run the church even if he couldn’t speak.

“It is sufficient that one’s will be expressed, and be expressed in a clear way,” Pompedda said. “It can be expressed very well through writing, and in any case can be expressed also with clear and significant gestures.”

Meanwhile, a US religious affairs magazine, Inside the Vatican, reported that when John Paul II was rushed to the hospital, he was gasping for breath and wracked with coughing fits and would have died within 10 minutes if not hospitalised.

Asked about the report, a Vatican official said the situation was “serious, very serious” when John Paul II was taken to the hospital at 10.50pm.

“If it were controllable, he would have been taken to the hospital the next morning,” the official said.

Shortly after the Pope was taken to Gemelli, Vatican officials said the pontiff’s aides decided on urgent hospitalisation because he was having a breathing “crisis”.

The Vatican’s next medical bulletin on the Pope’s health is scheduled for Thursday.