Pope Francis visit to central Italy fuels rumors of resignation, future of pontificate

Rumors about the future of Pope Francis’s pontificate and speculation of his resignation surfaced this weekend after he announced he was visiting the central Italian city of L'Aquila in August for an event hosted by Pope Celestine V, one of the pontiffs who resigned before Pope Benedict XVI left in 2013.

European and spiritual media have speculated the 85-year-old Pope may be following a similar path to Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger), accentuating his continued health issues which have resigned him to a wheelchair the past few weeks.

The speculation increased last week when Francis declared a consistory to create 21 new cardinals scheduled for Aug. 27. Sixteen of those 21 cardinals are younger than 80 and therefore able to vote in a conclave to vote for a potential successor.

Once the cardinals are conscripted into the ranks of princes of the church, Francis will have filled the College of Cardinals with 83 of the 132 voting-age cardinals, increasing the likelihood that those who hold Francis’ pastoral views will have voting power. 

“Francis also announced he would host two days of talks the following week to brief the cardinals about his recent apostolic constitution reforming the Vatican bureaucracy. That document, which goes into effect Sunday, allows women to head Vatican offices, imposes term limits on priestly Vatican employees and positions the Holy See as an institution at the service of local churches, rather than vice versa,” ABC News reported.

A week after the consistory Francis is scheduled to meet the cardinals to discuss his reforms to the Vatican’s central administration, which reportedly include adding term limits on the chiefs of Vatican offices and allowing females to hold such positions.

“Francis was elected pope in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Roman Curia. Now that the nine-year project has been rolled out and at least partially implemented, Francis’ main task as pope has in some ways been accomplished.”

“It’s very odd to have a consistory in August, there’s no reason that he needs to call this [event] three months in advance and then go to L’Aquila in the middle of it,” said Robert Mickens, the Rome-based editor of the Catholic daily newspaper, La Croix. “I think there’ll be another announcement: it might not be that he’s going to resign, but I think that’s a very good possibility.”

When Francis began his papacy, he revealed that he suspected his pontificate would be brief, describing Benedict’s decision to step down as “courageous.”