Rumours swirling since early May that Pope Francis might retire have been fuelled by an announcement that he will be attending a feast initiated by a 13th-century pope who himself resigned.
Speculation that the 85-year-old might follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Benedict XVI and step down from his post was prompted in early May when he appeared in public using a wheelchair for the first time, after undergoing a minor operation to treat knee pain.
It gained momentum when he made the unusual decision to host a consistory on 27 August to create new cardinals, some of whom will be eligible to elect the pontiff’s successor at the next conclave.
The next day, Francis will travel to L’Aquila, the Abruzzo town ravaged by an earthquake in 2009, for the Perdonanza Celestiniana festival, during which he will visit the cathedral that hosts of the tomb of Celestine V, a hermit pope who resigned in 1294 after just five months in the job. Benedict also visited the tomb in 2009, leaving behind his pallium stole in what some commentators at the time said was a symbolic gesture ahead of his own resignation, which came in 2013.
“It’s very odd to have a consistory in August, there’s no reason that he needs to call this [event] three months in advance and then go to L’Aquila in the middle of it,” said Robert Mickens, the Rome-based editor of the English-language edition of La Croix, a Catholic daily newspaper.
A week after the consistory the pontiff will meet the cardinals to brief them about his reforms to the Vatican’s central administration, which include imposing term limits on the chiefs of Vatican offices and allowing women to hold such posts.
“I think there’ll be another announcement: it might not be that he’s going to resign, but I think that’s a very good possibility,” added Mickens.
At the start of his papacy Francis said he would like to see the resignation of a pope becoming normal, and in 2015 he said he had a feeling that his pontificate would be brief, describing Benedict’s decision to step down as “courageous”.
Benedict, who chose to be called Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI instead of reverting to Joseph Ratzinger, was 85 at the time of his resignation.
“There’s a lot of symbolism at play here and I view [the speculation] with a bit of cynicism,” said Christopher White, the Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. “I don’t think it’s likely Francis will want two retired popes in the background. Unintentionally or not, having one pope in an undefined role has been a source of occasional headaches for Francis.”
White added that one of the things Francis wanted to do, should Benedict die before him, was institute reforms on the role a retired pope should play. The pontiff would also most likely want to see through the synod on synodality, a two-year process that ends with a major summit at the Vatican in October 2023.
“That being said, the major thing we’ve learnt about this pope in the last 10 years is that he continues to surprise us, and he seems to take great delight in that surprise element,” said White.
