Pope Francis’ conditions are improving, but now there is the risk of a shadowy conclave – Corriere.it

The Dad it is slowly getting better. But he will emerge from this hospitalization in any case weakened. And the Conclave shadow will go crazy more than ever…. The effects of Francesco’s hospitalization at the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic following Wednesday’s respiratory crisis are already making themselves felt. But it’s not just physical.

Almost by inertia they project all the shadows that have been accompanying them for some time; and that after the death of Benedict XVI, the Pope emeritus, last December 31st, have thickened. The theme is not this hospital stay: the Pope is not in danger of life. The theme, rather, is how he himself will analyze what happened to him, and what conclusions he will draw from it.

The words of the Vatican source sound slightly anodyne. Only partially, for. Lexical modesty reveals the big question about a possible renunciation: an unresolved question from a legislative point of view, probably because it is unsolvable; but still pending, due to the fluctuating indications that have arrived in recent years from Casa Santa Marta. In recent months, Francis has released a series of interviews in which he has hinted at intentions that do not always coincide: to the point of specifying, in the face of rumors interested in possible resignations, that the papacy tends to be for life.

But he had previously stated that he could resign for serious health reasons, or if he realizes he is losing lucidity; that if he renounced he would not remain in the Vatican; that he wouldn’t even go to Argentina; that perhaps he would retire to a Roman parish, or to the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano; that he would not be called Pope Emeritus like his predecessor but Bishop Emeritus of Rome; and that he would never wear the white suit again. The problem is that suddenly, for two days these abstract hypotheses have had to deal with a sudden, unpredictable physical breakdown. And therefore they become less theoretical speculations on the near future of his pontificate.

Witness the feverish and somewhat deranged agitation that anonymously show friends and adversaries, for opposite reasons. The former, because they fear that what happened will bring not only renunciation but the reckoning in a deeply divided Church. The others, because they trust that the weakening of Francis will accelerate a Conclave with mysterious contours, but considered one of the most difficult and conflicting in recent decades. At a time when above all compassion and solidarity towards Jorge Mario Bergoglio should emerge, which moreover arrived from many quarters, instead the almost tribal division that survived every papacy reappears; and not healed in the decade of Francis.

a deaf conflict that the Pope perceives, and from which he suffers. In recent days, receiving a delegation of refugees, he would have summoned more enemies inside the Vatican, as well as outside. And he was certainly not comforted by the departure of the prefect of the Papal Household, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, who at the Courier he had confided before the papal illness: I believe that not a few cardinals would have lived well if Angelo Scola had been Pope. Cardinal Scola, then archbishop of Milan, was considered in 2013 the most accredited Italian candidate for the papacy.

In addition, the fact that the Vatican press office and not the Gemelli doctors continue to communicate the course of the hospitalization risks contributing to giving birth to the most malevolent rumors. So far they have never seen or heard the voice of the doctors who are treating him. There are no official bulletins from the hospital, like there weren’t two years ago when Francesco underwent stomach surgery. And this lack of transparency allows enemies and friends to choose their favorite narrative, without the public opinion being able to fully understand how things are.

The impression that in the Vatican
let everyone stay in suspense, and in a silence that confirms the disorientation and uncertainty. Under track, however, the maneuvers for the Conclave, never interruptedyou, they are escalating. Someone photographs the paradox of an Argentine pontificate flanked, if not conditioned for almost ten years by the shadow of the emeritus Benedict; and just three months back to normal after the death of Joseph Ratzinger. Instead, just when only one reigning Pope had finally reaffirmed, this respiratory crisis arrived, combined with heart pain: as if Francis and Benedict were pontiffs with existential trajectories difficult to separate.