At the end of a six-day visit to Canada in which he was seen exhausted and in a wheelchair, Pope Francis acknowledged on Saturday that he will have to reduce his pace of travel or “step aside”.
“I don’t think I can maintain the same pace of travel as before. I think that, at my age, and with these limitations, I have to save my strength a little to be able to serve the Church, or on the contrary, think about the possibility of stepping aside,” said Francisco, of 85 years, during a press conference that took place on the plane that takes him back to the Vatican.
“The door is open. It is a very normal option,” Francisco said. The Pontiff assured that he is not thinking of resigning right now, but that does not mean that he cannot begin to assess this possibility soon.
Knee problems
Francisco, who suffers from in a knee he moved with great effort and had to use a wheelchair almost always during his stay in Canada. “Honestly, it’s not a catastrophe. He can change dad. It can be changed. It is not a problem”, he added when talking about his health problems.
His knee problem could be solved with an operation, but he does not want to go through the operating room again after the intervention in the colon just over a year ago. “You don’t play with anesthesia”, the pontiff has expressed about the possibility of undergoing an operation.
Genocide against indigenous people in Canada
On the other hand, Francis recognized that the Church’s treatment of indigenous people in Canada amounted to “genocide”. “I didn’t say the word (in Canada) because it didn’t come to mind, but I did describe a genocide. And I apologized for that process, which was genocide”, the Pope declared to journalists on the plane back.
Since his arrival in Canada last Monday, the pontiff apologized for the “ evil” caused to indigenous peoples by the abuses committed for decades in Catholic institutions. “I condemned all of it. Kidnapping, changing the culture, changing the mentality, changing the traditions, changing a race, let’s say, a whole culture. Yes, genocide is a technical word. I didn’t use it because it didn’t come to mind. But I have described it, it is true, it is genocide”, he reiterated.