My resignation letter went in long ago, Pope Francis tells newspaper

Francis reveals he wrote a letter of resignation shortly after being elected in case medical problems prevented him from governing effectively.

Pope Francis greets children and staff of the Santa Marta Dispensary during a private audience. Picture: AFP.

Pope Francis, who turned 86 on Saturday, has revealed that he wrote a letter of resignation shortly after being elected in case medical problems prevented him from governing the Roman Catholic Church effectively.

Francis told the conservative Catholic newspaper ABC in an interview published yesterday that he had handed the letter to the Vatican Secretary of State after his election to the papacy on March 13 2013.

“I have already signed my resignation. Tarcisio Bertone was secretary of state. I signed it and I told him: ‘In case of impediment for medical reasons or whatever, here is my resignation’.”

Francis joked that someone would now run to Bertone demanding: “Give me that piece of paper.” He suggested that Bertone would have passed on the letter to his successor, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Francis has previously discussed the possibility of resigning and has praised his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, for being the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. Benedict, now 95, said his health made it impossible to continue to lead the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.

Pope Paul VI is known to have left a letter of resignation in case of physical or mental impediment and Francis said he believed Pope Pius XII had done the same. John Paul II, in contrast, was determined to remain in office until death.

The Pope underwent bowel surgery in 2021 and has been affected by knee pain that has forced him to use a wheelchair and to walk with a cane for short distances. But he indicated he thought his mobility problems were improving. “I’m walking already, the decision not to undergo an operation has proved to be right. One governs with the head, not the knee,” he told ABC.

Asked if he had any advice for a successor, he replied: “I would tell them not to make the mistakes that I did.” Were there many, he was asked. “Yes there are, yes.”

Francis said he was determined to continue his reforms, opening up positions of power in the Vatican to women, including the appointment of a woman at the head of a Vatican department due to fall vacant in two years. “There is no obstacle to prevent a woman from heading a dicastery where a lay person can be prefect.”

In a birthday gesture that is likely to pile more pressure on the British Museum, the Pope announced that the Vatican would return three fragments of the Parthenon to Greece.

The fragments – which depict the head of a youth, a bearded male head, and the head of a horse – had been in the Vatican Museum since the 19th century. The bearded head is believed to come from a frieze representing a battle between Centaurs and Lapiths, while the boy’s head belonged to a figure carrying a votive offering on a tray.

The Vatican said the Pope had decided to donate the fragments to His Beatitude Ieronymos II, archbishop of Athens and all Greece, “as a concrete sign of the sincere desire to continue on the ecumenical path of testimony to the Truth”.

The Greek ministry of culture expressed gratitude and said it hoped the generous decision would encourage the British Museum to follow suit and return the Elgin marbles.

The Times