Tired Pope Francis says he should scale back on trip or possibly retire

Pope Francis said on Saturday that he cannot walk as he used to because of a strained knee ligament. A week-long trip to Canada It was a “little test” that showed he might have to slow down and retire one day.

Francis, 85, told reporters on his way home from northern Nunavut that he had no plans to step down, but said “the door is open” and there was no problem with a pope stepping down.

“It’s not surprising, it’s not a crime, you can change the pope,” he said during a 45-minute news conference while sitting in a wheelchair on the plane.

While Francis is not considering quitting yet, he at least realizes that he needs to slow down.

“At my age and with these limitations, I must conserve[my energy]to serve the church or, conversely, consider the possibility of stepping aside,” he said.

After Francis’ first trip to get around in a wheelchair, walker and cane, he was bombarded with questions about the future of the papacy, which severely limited his schedule and ability to mingle with the public.

Earlier this year, he tore a ligament in his right knee, and continued laser and magnetic therapy forced him to cancel a trip to Africa that had been scheduled for the first week of July.

The trip to Canada was difficult, and Francis showed himself several times getting up and down from his seats in obvious pain.

At the end of his six-day visit, he appeared in good spirits and energy, despite traveling to the shores of the Arctic Ocean on Friday to once again apologize to indigenous peoples for abuses at Canada’s church-run residential schools.

Francis said the results of more than six hours of anesthesia to remove his 13-inch large intestine in July 2021 “still have scars” and he said they would not be able to operate on his knee.

“I will continue to make trips and try to be close to people because I think this is a way of service, to be close. But more than that, I can’t say,” he said on Saturday.

Francis agreed to the experiment in other comments on the papal plane. To destroy the indigenous culture It is cultural “genocide” in Canada’s church-run residential school system.

Francis said he didn’t use the word because it didn’t come to mind during their trip to Canada. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada In 2015, Canadians ruled that removing Indigenous people from their homes and placing them in church-run residential schools was “cultural genocide.”

“It’s true that the word didn’t come to mind so I didn’t use it, but I did describe it as genocide, didn’t I?” Francis said. “I apologize, I apologize for this act, which is genocide.”