Pope Benedict News – Latest: Vatican says ex-pope ‘rested well’ after attending mass in his room

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose health has worsened, is stable and able to participate in mass gatherings in his room, the Vatican said.

“The Pope Emeritus was able to rest well last night,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement. “He also participated in the Holy Mass in his room yesterday afternoon. He is now in stable condition.”

On Wednesday, Pope Francis announced that his 95-year-old predecessor was “very ill” and that he had visited his home in the Vatican gardens.

Pope Francis has called for prayers for his predecessor Benedict, who is “very ill”.

In his remarks at the end of the year meeting, he asked people to say “a special prayer” for the ailing former pope.

He was addressing an audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

The former pope was once dubbed ‘God’s Rottweiler’ for his staunchly conservative views.

My colleague Thomas Kingsley Pope Benedict XVI observes:

One expert said it was unclear whether the usual protocol would apply when former Pope Benedict died.

The Catholic Church has strict rules for when its leader dies.

Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, citing old age, becoming the first pope to step down in six centuries.

He continues to live in the Vatican, meaning two popes have lived side-by-side for nearly a decade.

“Never before have we had a living pope help bury a dead pope,” Catholic historian John McGreevy said.

Pope Francis revealed on Wednesday that Pope Benedict was “very ill” and had visited him at his home in the Vatican, where he has lived since retiring in 2013, sparking fears that he was close to death.

The Vatican later said that Benedict’s condition had worsened in the past few hours, but that his condition was under control as doctors monitored him.

In 2013 Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to resign, choosing to spend his retirement in seclusion in a converted monastery in the Vatican garden.

Few expected his retirement — now in its 10th year — to last longer than his eight-year papacy.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said yesterday that Benedict “was able to rest well last night, is completely lucid and alert, and today, his health is poor, and the situation is stable at the moment.”

“Pope Francis renews the invitation to pray for him and accompany him in this difficult time,” he said.

Word of Pope Benedict’s deteriorating health immediately raised questions about what would happen if he died, given the unprecedented fact that a pope would preside over the funeral of a former pope.

Most Vatican experts expect the retired bishop of Rome to comply with the caveat that official delegations will be there to honor the former head of state and pilgrims from Germany — home to Benedict, the former Joseph Ratzinger. and beyond.

Otherwise, normal life continued in the small city-state that Benedict and Pope Francis call home, while the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano headlined its editions yesterday with news of Benedict’s health.

Francis made his usual day of visitors yesterday, meeting his ambassador to Madagascar, the commander of the Swiss Guards and fellow Jesuits.

In the square, the line of tourists waiting to enter St. Peter’s Basilica almost completely wrapped around the piazza, as couples and families stopped to pose for selfies in front of the life-size Nativity scene and Christmas tree set up in the square.

Bishops in Germany offered prayers, and some faithful went to the Grace Chapel in the town square of Altoetting, a few miles from Benedict’s hometown of Marktl am Inn.

“I know he’s getting ready to come home to the eternal world,” said Herbert Hofauer, the retired mayor of the deeply Catholic city, who said he last saw Benedict in the spring.

“I believe he looks forward to this meeting very calmly.”

At the church of St Oswald in Marktl, where Benedict was baptised, Sandra Maier, head of the local congregation, arranged a small plinth with a portrait of the former pope so parishioners could kneel and pray for him.

Mrs Meyer said she was shocked and deeply saddened by the news of Benedict’s condition.

“Now I want him to have an easy time and not suffer because of it,” she said.

Ms. Meyer, 50, recalls meeting him personally twice.

“He was a good man and a great pope.”

As St Peter’s Square at the Vatican was filled with visitors from abroad yesterday – during the peak Christmas tourist season – some Italians came out to pay their respects or at least pray.

“Obviously it’s a bad situation, we’re all close to Pope Ratzinger, we’re sad about the situation, so we came here to make our small contribution,” said one pilgrim, Giorgio Gipin.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is lucid, alert and stable but his health continues to deteriorate, the Vatican said yesterday, a day after the 95-year-old revealed his health had recently deteriorated.

In a statement from Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, Pope Francis asked for continued prayers “to accompany him in these difficult times”.