Pope Emeritus is overcoming painful but not serious illness
The Vatican, responding to a report in a German newspaper that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was seriously ill, said on Monday (3) that the condition “is not particularly worrying” and that he is overcoming a painful illness, but not serious.
The clarification came hours after Benedict’s biographer Peter Seewald caused an alarm by telling Passauer Neue Presse that he had found the 93-year-old Pope emeritus to be exceptionally fragile when he visited him on Saturday (1st).
Seewald said that Bento, who has had health problems for some time, now suffers from herpes zoster, a viral infection that causes painful rashes and is common among the elderly.
“The health conditions of Pope Emeritus are not particularly worrying, apart from the fact that he is a 93-year-old man who is overcoming the most acute phase of a painful, but not serious, illness,” the statement said.
Seewald said that Bento’s voice is almost inaudible – repeating something that other visitors said months ago – and that Pope Emeritus told him he could return to writing if he regained his strength.
In June, Benedict, who lives in a former convent in the Vatican gardens, left Italy for the first time since his resignation in 2013 for a farewell visit to his older brother, Georg, in Bavaria. Georg Ratzinger died on July 1, aged 96. The two brothers were ordained priests on the same day, in 1951.
