The Pope Emeritus is ill:
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI is sick with a bacterial infection and “very frail,” according to a German newspaper report.
Citing Pope Benedict’s biographer Peter Seewald, German newspaper Passauer Neue Presse (PNP) reported Aug. 3 that the 93-year-old pope emeritus is suffering from facial erysipelas, a bacterial infection of the skin which causes a painful, red rash.
The infection can also result in fever, headaches, and lymphedema. It is treated with antibiotics.
Seewald told PNP that Pope Benedict has been “very frail” since his return from visiting his ailing older brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, in Bavaria in June. Georg Ratzinger died July 1.
Seewald saw Pope Benedict XVI at his Vatican home in the Mater Ecclesia monastery Aug. 1 to present him with a copy of his latest biography of the retired pope.
Go here to read the rest. At 93 no illness is really minor. When the Pope Emeritus passes, he will be one of the last of the major figures of Vatican II to depart from the scene. Prayers for his recovery.
Yes, let us pray for both Pope’s daily. Uncertainty is the status of both.
Andrew Klavan called him “the last great man of Europe”. It’ll probably be 200 years before he’s canonized, unless God goes really heavy-handed with the miracles, but he seems as safe a candidate for Heaven as one can be while still on Earth.
God grant that he recover fully.
Amen.