Pope Francis: “There are those in the Vatican who hoped that I would leave after hospitalization. I will never call myself Pope Emeritus”

“Over the years, some may have hoped that sooner or later, perhaps after hospitalization, I would make an announcement like this, but there is no such risk: thanks to the Lord, I enjoy good health and, God willing, there are still many plans to realize”. As Pope francesco excludes imminent resignation, in the book-interview “Life. My story in History”, which comes out on March 19, St. Joseph’s Day, in America and Europe with HarperCollins.

History and History

In the book-interview with the journalist Fabio Marchese Ragonaanticipated today by Corriere della Sera, on the day following the 11th anniversary of his pontificate, the Pope retraces the salient passages of his life against the backdrop of great historical events, from the emigration of his grandparents from Italy to Argentina to the Second World War, from his education to the choice of become a priest, from the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima to the Argentine dictatorship (“They presented me with the case of a boy who needed to escape from Argentina: I noticed that he looked like me and so I managed to make him escape dressed as a priest and with my passport identity”). The story of his exile in Cordoba is significant – already explored, in reality, in the book “That Bergoglio, this Francis” written by Javier Camara e Sebastian Pfaffen in 2015 – when some Jesuits murmured: “Bergoglio is crazy”. In reality, the future Pope, who often returned to those years, reflects on the mistakes “committed due to my authoritarian attitude, so much so that I was accused of being ultra-conservative. It was a period of purification. I was very closed in on myself, a little depressed.”

The women in his life

The Pope returns to talk about various women in his life, of whom he spoke several times during his pontificate: his grandmother Rosa, a key figure in his childhood and his Christian education, the communist lady with whom he worked as a chemist, the psychotherapist Jewish woman to whom he turned as an adult, but also a girlfriend he had before becoming a priest and also, in the first year of seminary, a “crush”, as the Pope has already said, for a “beautiful and intelligent” young woman he met in a wedding.

“Benedict XVI exploited against me”

Then the return to Buenos Aires as auxiliary bishop, the episcopal consecration, and the 2013 Conclave. The Pope also reinterprets various moments of the pontificate, such as the pandemic, travel, the good relationship with Benedict XVI. “It has instead saddened me to see, over the years, how his figure as Pope Emeritus has been exploited for ideological and political purposes by unscrupulous people who, not having accepted his resignation, have thought of their own gain and their own little garden to cultivate, underestimating the dramatic possibility of a fracture within the Church”

“The last absolute monarchy”

Jorge Mario Bergoglio then takes stock of the reforms initiated during his pontificate. “It is true that the Vatican is the last absolute monarchy in Europe, and that court reasoning and maneuvers are often carried out here, but these schemes must be definitively abandoned,” says Bergoglio. In the 2013 conclave “there was a great desire to change things, to abandon certain attitudes that unfortunately still struggle to disappear today. There are always those who try to slow down the reform, those who would like to remain stuck in the times of the Pope-King”.

Resignation? Far hypothesis

“I think the Petrine ministry is to life and therefore I see no conditions for a waiver. Things would change if a serious physical impediment occurred, and in that case I have already signed the letter with the resignation at the beginning of the pontificate which is deposited in the Secretariat of State. If this were to happen, I would not call myself Pope Emeritus, but simply Bishop Emeritus of Rome, and I would move to Santa Maria Maggiore to return to being a confessor and bringing communion to the sick. But this is a distant hypothesis, because I really don’t have reasons serious enough to make me think about giving up. Over the years, some may have hoped that sooner or later, perhaps after hospitalization, I would make an announcement like this, but there is no such risk: thanks to the Lord, I enjoy good health and, God willing, there are many projects still to be realize”.