Pope Francis has refuted reports that he plans to step down in the near future, saying he will visit Canada this month and hopes to be able to go to Moscow and Kiev as soon as possible afterwards.
In an interview with Reuters at his Vatican residence, Francis also denied rumors he had cancer, joking that his doctors “didn’t tell me anything about it”, and for the first time gave details about the knee condition that prevented him from perform some duties.
In a 90-minute conversation Saturday afternoon, conducted in Italian, without aides present, the 85-year-old pontiff also repeated his condemnation of abortion following the US Supreme Court ruling last month.
Rumors surfaced in the media that a conjunction of events in late August, including meetings with world cardinals to discuss a new Vatican constitution, a ceremony to swear in new cardinals and a visit to the Italian city of L’Aquila, could foreshadow an announcement. of dismissal.
L’Aquila is associated with Pope Celestine V, who resigned from the papacy in 1294. Pope Benedict XVI visited the city four years before resigning in 2013, the first pope to do so in some 600 years.
But Francis, alert and at ease throughout the interview as he discussed a wide range of international and church issues, chuckled at the idea.
“All these coincidences made some think that the same ‘liturgy’ would happen,” he said. “But it never crossed my mind. Not yet, not yet. Really!”
Francis, however, repeated his position that he might one day resign if health made it impossible for him to run the Church – something that was almost unthinkable before Benedict.
Asked when he thought that might happen, he said: “We don’t know. God will tell.”
KNEE TREATMENT
The interview took place on the day the Pope was due to leave for the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, a trip he had to cancel due to medical advice that recommended another 20 days of therapy for his right knee.
He said the decision to cancel the trip to Africa caused him “a lot of suffering”, mainly because he wanted to promote peace in both countries.
Asked how he was doing, the pope joked: “I’m still alive!” He gave details of his illness for the first time, saying he suffered “a minor fracture” in his knee when he made a misstep while a ligament was inflamed.
“I’m fine, I’m slowly improving,” he said, adding that the fracture is being healed, helped by laser and magnetic therapy.
Francis also dismissed rumors that cancer was found a year ago when he underwent a six-hour operation to remove part of his colon for diverticulitis, a common condition in the elderly.
“It (the operation) was a great success,” he said, adding with a laugh that “they didn’t tell me anything” about the alleged cancer, which he dismissed as “court gossip.”
But he said he didn’t want a knee operation because the general anesthesia in last year’s surgery had negative side effects.
VISIT MOSCOW
Speaking of the situation in Ukraine, Francis noted that there had been contacts between Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about a possible trip to Moscow.
The initial signs were not good. No pope has ever visited Moscow, and Francis has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; last Thursday, he implicitly accused him of waging a “cruel and senseless war of aggression”.
When the Vatican first asked about a trip several months ago, Francis said Moscow responded that the time was not right. But he hinted that something may now have changed. “I would like to go (to Ukraine), and I wanted to go to Moscow first. We exchanged messages about this because I thought that if the Russian president would give me a small window to serve the cause of peace,” the pontiff said.
Asked about the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the historic Roe v. Wade, which establishes a woman’s right to abortion, Francis said he respects the decision but doesn’t have enough information to speak about it from a legal point of view.
But he strongly condemned abortion, likening it to “hire a hired assassin.” The Catholic Church preaches that life begins at conception.
