Benedict XVI slept in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, located within the Vatican walls, where he has resided since he resigned from the pontificate in 2013 and for the moment he has not been transferred to any hospital, although the medical attention he receives is constant.
The emeritus pope Benedict XVI he is “lucid”, although his health conditions are “serious” but “stable”, reported this Thursday the director of the Vatican press office, Matteo Bruni.
“The emeritus pope has managed to rest well the night before, he is totally lucid and alert, and today, Although the conditions remain serious, the situation is stable at the moment. Pope Francis renews the invitation to pray for him and accompany him in these difficult times,” he said in a brief statement.
Francis warned regarding the situation of the emeritus pontiff in the general audience on Wednesday, when he asked for “a special prayer for Pope Benedict XVI, who in silence is supporting the church” and is “very sick.”
After these words, Bruni issued a first press release to confirm that in recent hours there had been “a worsening” of his condition “due to advancing age”, but without giving further details regarding his condition.
According to some media, Benedict XVI refused to be transferred to a hospital from the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, in the Vatican gardens, where he has lived apart since 2013, following his resignation, and where he continues to be constantly monitored by medical teams and accompanied by his secretary, the German Georg Gänswein.
And, according to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, citing sources close to the monastery, the emeritus pontiff is “responding positively to the treatment.”
This Wednesday, the Diocese of Rome assured that it has joined the prayer request made by Francis at the general audience on Wednesday, when he sounded the alarm regarding the situation of Benedict XVI.
“I ask for a special prayer for Pope Benedict XVI who is supporting the Church in silence and to remember that he is very ill and asking the Lord to comfort him and support him in this testimony of love for the Church until the end,” Francis said. .
Since April 2, 2013, Joseph Ratzinger has lived surrounded by his Vatican “family”, made up of a secretary and four consecrated lay women from the “Memores Domini” institute, which belongs to the Communion and Liberation movement, who divide the tasks of the house and take care of the needs of the emeritus pope.
Benedict XVI, the first pope to renounce the pontificate since the time of Gregory XII, at the beginning of the 15th century, has rarely left the leonine walls, once to visit his inseparable brother in the hospital and in June 2020 when He traveled to Regensburg (Germany) to see him once more a few weeks before he died.
