Pope Francis has been admitted to the Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital for more than two weeks, but it is not the first time that a pontiff is absent from the Vatican for medical reasons, and much less the most durable. The first was on May 13, 1981, When John Paul II received two shots In the Plaza de San Pedro and a operation of more than six hours was needed to stop the bleeding and extract the bullet remains. On that occasion he was discharged on June 3, 22 days after being admitted.
Little more than two weeks later, on June 20, the Polish Pope had to be hospitalized again for a serious infection they detected because of very high fevers. It was a cytomegalovirus. Since he was admitted, as soon as the fever disappeared, the doctors took the opportunity to complete the emergency surgery of the previous month. Karol Wojtyla did not leave the Vatican until August 14, which added no less than 55 days of hospitalization.
No one doubts that whoever commands in the Vatican is in any case the Pope, – currently Pope Francis – but this It does not mean that when he is missing, the curia’s machinery is paralyzed. Nor is it correct to think that these days everything revolves around the San Pedro dome with the autopilot. To get an idea, a formula they use to describe their work is to govern ‘ad mindm Papam’, which could translate as “make the decisions he would have made.” With the problem that decisions of special relevance cannot be made.
«The departments of the Vatican are very autonomous and almost have their own life. In the curia there is no government body equivalent to the Council of Ministers. Each dicastery has an autonomously managed work plan. In this sense, work continues and does not stop, ”he explains to ABC a high position of the Vatican. «The daily work of the Vatican officials does not change, but everything that requires the direct intervention of the Holy Father. Since your hospitalization there are no audiencesand we are waiting for him to recover to consult some issues, ”he adds. In his opinion, it is not good for the situation of “paralysis” or “prolonged pause” to continue too much, and his proposal is to “restructure and redistribute.”
During these two weeks, practically every day the Holy See has announced that the Pope has appointed new bishops or erected organisms. Although it is not clear if they were decisions made before hospitalization, according to this high position they serve to send the message that, «In spite of everything, the Pope is in command». That is, it has not entered into a dreaded phase of ‘impeded headquarters’.
The Code of Canon Law refers to the ‘headquarters prevented’ in the chapter dedicated to the Roman Pontiff. «When the Roman headquarters are vacant or totally prevented, Nothing must be innovated in the universal church regime: The special laws given for those cases have to be observed, ”recites the fee. But while there is a law that regulates the vacant headquarters, there is no rule that is occupied with the ‘impeded headquarters’.
«Pope Francis, a delicate issue. What happens if a pontiff is suddenly prevented from health or accident problems? Wouldn’t a rule be convenient for these cases? ”ABC asked the Pontiff in the interview of December 18, 2022. The Pope said that this rule in practice was not necessary because« “I have already signed my resignation». «I signed it and said: ‘In case of impediment for medical issues, or what do I know, here is my resignation. They already have it ‘». His predecessors thought the same, and that is why Benedict XVI also signed a similar letter in 2006, as Paul VI and Pius XII did before.
If the Pope is not ‘prevented’, only he can make decisions such as appointing new bishops, sanctioning or amnestying Cardinals or high positions of the Church, creating new cardinals, promulgate new saints or mark the policies of Vatican diplomacy. When he is sick, he does not have a substitute and if someone makes decisions “in his name” he is exceeding his functions.
Influence of the environment
According to Georg Gänswein in his book ‘Nothing more than the truth’ (2023), one of the reasons that led Benedict XVI to present the resignation was “to prevent some of his collaborators from winning spaces of power” that did not correspond to him, as he saw in the last days of the pontificate of John Paul II when he “no longer fully carried the reins of the government.” «Ratzinger had seen how the main Vatican exponents They had gained more and more influencesometimes even competing with each other, ”he recalls.
This painting does not mean that in the Vatican only the Pope’s voice tells. In the Holy See there is a hierarchy that allows you to address urgent issues if they cannot consult the pontiff. The voice that counts the most is that of Cardinal Secretary of Statecurrently Pietro Parolin, 70 years old. Of diplomatic formation, he was a nuncio in Venezuela when the Pope asked him to become number two of the Holy See.
The number three of the Holy See is the substitute for the Secretary of State, Edgar Peña Parra, 64 -year -old Venezuelan, who deals with the daily management of the Pope’s activity, such as communicating his decisions or coordinating what he requests. This Monday was with Francisco and informed him of the most urgent issues.
In an area of non -hierarchical prestige, there are three other voices that everyone listens with particular attention to the Vatican. They are those of Cardinal Dean, Giovanni Battista Re, 91, and that of the Vice -Decoon Leonardo Sandri, 81, since they maintain communication between the Pope and the Cardinals College; and that of Camarlengo, currently Kevin Farrellcustodian of possible decisions that the Pope has established for the case of vacancy.
These weeks are also fundamental the three secretaries of the Pope, the Argentine priests Daniel Pellizzon and Juan Cruz Villalónand the Italian Fabio Salerno. They are his link with the world, and with the Vatican because they take correspondence and private documents that he requests from his desk and transmit their answers. Unlike other papal secretaries, none of them works full time to avoid personalism, and they are almost never seen because they live practically as monks in Santa Marta, preventing them from being used to have privileged access to the Pope.
In the Technical Government, since yesterday the Vatican City State is for the first time in the hands of a governor, Sister Raffaella Petrini, 56, who replaces the Spanish cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga. Salamanca cardinal He turned 80 years old this Saturdayso he lost his right to participate in an eventual conclave.
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