ABOARD THE POPE PLANE (AP) – Pope Francis acknowledged Saturday that he can no longer travel as much as he used to because of strained knee ligaments, saying his weeklong Canadian pilgrimage was “a bit of a test ” that showed he needed to slow down and slow down. someday possibly retire.
Speaking to reporters as he traveled home from northern Nunavut, Francis, 85, stressed he had not considered resigning, but said “the door is open” and there was nothing wrong with resigning. a pope
“It’s not strange. It’s not a catastrophe. You can change the pope,” he said while sitting in an airplane wheelchair during a 45-minute news conference.
Francis said that while he hadn’t considered resigning until now, he realizes that he at least needs to slow down.
“I think that at my age and with these limitations, I have to save (my energy) to be able to serve the church, or on the contrary, think about the possibility of taking a step to the side,” he said.
Francis was beset by questions about the future of his pontificate after the first trip in which he used a wheelchair, a walker and a cane to get around, drastically limiting his schedule and his ability to mingle with crowds.
He strained ligaments in his right knee earlier this year and continued laser and magnetic therapy forced him to cancel a trip to Africa that was scheduled for the first week of July.
The trip to Canada was difficult and featured several moments when Francis was clearly in pain as he maneuvered himself up and down from chairs.
At the end of his six-day tour, he appeared in good spirits and energetic, despite a long day traveling to the edge of the Arctic on Friday to apologize to indigenous peoples for the injustices they suffered in residential schools in the church of canada
Francis ruled out knee surgery, saying it would not necessarily help and noted that “there are still traces” of the effects of undergoing more than six hours of anesthesia in July 2021 to remove 33 centimeters (13 in ) of your large intestine. .
“I’ll try to keep traveling and being close to people because I think it’s a way to provide service, to be close. But more than that, I can’t say,” he said on Saturday.
In other remarks aboard the papal plane, Francis:
— Agreed that the attempt to eliminate indigenous culture in Canada through a church-run residential school system amounted to cultural “genocide.” Francis said he did not use the term during his trip to Canada because it did not occur to him. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission determined in 2015 that the forced removal of Indigenous children from their homes and placement in church-run residential schools to assimilate them into Christian Canadians constituted a ” cultural genocide”.
“It’s true that I didn’t use the word because it didn’t come to mind, but I did describe genocide, didn’t I?” Francis said. “I asked for forgiveness, I asked for forgiveness for this work, which was genocide.”
— He suggested that he was not opposed to the development of Catholic doctrine on the use of contraception. Church teaching prohibits artificial contraception. Francis noted that a Vatican think tank recently released the minutes of a congress where a modification to the church’s absolute “no” was discussed. He stressed that doctrine can develop over time and that it was the job of theologians to pursue these developments, and the Pope would ultimately decide.
Francis noted that the church’s teaching on atomic weapons was changed during his pontificate to consider not only the use but the mere possession of atomic weapons as immoral and to consider the death penalty immoral in all the cases
— He confirmed that he hoped to travel to Kazakhstan in mid-September for an interfaith conference where he could meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who has justified the war in Ukraine. Francis also said he wants to go to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, although no trip has yet been confirmed. He said he hoped to reschedule the trip to South Sudan that he canceled because of his knee problems. He said the Congo leg of that trip would probably have to be postponed until next year because of the rainy season.
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