It’s going to be all right. The pope is on the mend. He has had a few sips of water, has begun eating, and is breathing normally again, following a health scare earlier this week brought on by flu. Vatican officials say he has a bit of a temperature, but he is well on his way to recovery.
Italian reports say the pontiff has participated in a Mass in his room, while about 50 other people — mostly doctors — attended another ceremony at the hospital’s chapel held for San Biagio, patron saint of the throat.
On Sunday, according to Vatican officials, the pope may even be well enough to give his regular Angelus address by video link from his hospital room.
While the ailing 84-year-old was lying in hospital this week, Vatican business continued pretty much as normal, and the cogs of the Vatican’s vast internal bureaucracy will continue to turn in his absence.
Only those events at which he is required to be physically present are being postponed.
Pilgrims were disappointed not to see their spiritual leader appear at his usual window above St Peter’s Square on Wednesday for his weekly address, while the president of the European Parliament and new Austrian ambassador to the Holy See will have to wait to meet the Pope after all appointments for the coming days were postponed.
Under Canon law, however ill the Pope becomes, while he is still alive he remains the supreme, infallible leader for the 1,1-billion Roman Catholics around the world.
”We value his spiritual point of view, regardless of his age,” explained Archbishop Szczepan Wesoly, who heads the Polish church in Rome. ”However old and frail he is, people when they meet him still feel the spiritual strength radiating around him.”
The pope is considered to be chosen by God, and without the full ritual of an election — a conclave — no one can step into his shoes. There is no such thing as a deputy pope.
Only when there is a sede vacante (an ”empty seat”), when one pope has died and another has yet to be elected, does the Camerlengo, currently Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, officially become interim leader of the church pending the election of a new pope.
For now, until the pope returns to the Vatican, the papal office is technically closed and senior promotions are on hold, bishops and cardinals cannot be nominated and no new saints can be made.
But just as in any state administration, many decisions can still be made. Many of the pope’s duties are being managed by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who needs to run only the most critical issues by the pope for approval.
The Vatican’s foreign and interior ministers provide him with back-up, and, in the pope’s absence, guidance from the pontiff’s chief theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, gains greater weight.
”It’s not a big deal,” Wesoly says. ”You don’t think [US President George] Bush makes all his decisions himself, do you?”
Once the pope returns to the Vatican, he will resume his formal and visible duties as soon as it is physically possible.
In outward appearance, things will return to normal and the pope will be officially back in charge. But there are fears that after this latest setback, he may never be his old self again.
For years now, before this week’s scare, the pope has been cutting back on his activities. He no longer walks due to knee problems and he often allows aides to read his speeches or represent him at events abroad.
What is now a temporary way of keeping Vatican affairs ticking over could out of necessity become unofficially the way the Roman Catholic Church is run from now on. — Guardian Unlimited Â