Speculation About A Pope Francis Resignation Is Picking Up Steam

Updated Feb. 27, 2025 at 3 p.m.*

-Analysis-

ROME — The “ghost of resignation” has been hovering for some time now, not only in the alleyways around the Vatican but also across the Catholic world. It is an idea, a scenario, that has come and gone in recent years depending on the state of health of Pope Francis, who appears increasingly exhausted, even while maintaining a clearly indomitable spirit of perseverance.

It’s now been two weeks since the pontiff was admitted to the hospital on Feb. 14 for a bout of bronchitis, which was later diagnosed as bilateral pneumonia. The Holy See Press Office reported Wednesday on a “slight improvement” – but still gave a “guarded” prognosis.

Speculation about a possible resignation has not abated. The latest news to fuel the rumors was the reported scheduling of a special meeting of the College of Cardinals called a consistory. It was just such a gathering where the pontiff’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, announced his resignation 12 years ago.

Giacomo Galeazzi, a veteran Vatican reporter for La Stampa, has also asked why Francis, unlike Pope John Paul II, hasn’t come to his hospital window to salute the faithful. “Zero images,” of the Pope, he writes. “Is that a choice or necessity?”

This is Francis’ fourth recent trip to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. And yes, there is much concern for the Holy Father’s health, not least because respiratory difficulties are weighing on a body that already has to deal with other issues, forcing him into a public life spent mostly in a wheelchair. That indomitable spirit, alas, may not be enough. He has been forced to regularly cancel audiences. He cannot make long speeches and asks other prelates to continue his homilies.

Benedict’s example

But others note that he continues to offer surprises. He sent a video message last week to Italy’s popular Sanremo music festival. Even now from his hospital room at Gemelli, we are told, he does not fail to phone the parish of Gaza every night.

Yet Francis is a pope who remembers the drama of the declining health and public appearances of Pope John Paul II in his final years, and does not shirk his responsibility to be present despite physical weakness. Moreover his own health struggles are a powerful way to communicate the needs to care for human precariousness around the world.

Still, this declining state of health may prompt, sooner or later, the Argentine pope to emulate Benedict XVI, who 12 years ago surprised the world with the grand gesture of resigning from the papacy, warning with great humility and honesty that he “lacked the strength to carry on a superhuman task.”

A simple ex-bishop?

This recent example in Church history has been hanging over the pontificate of Francis. On several occasions through his papacy, he has returned to the issue, always ultimately reiterating that the figure of the pope is meant to be “for life.”

The possibility of resignation is not ruled out.

Still, he has also pondered what he would do if he resigned, imagining himself as a simple ex-bishop of Rome, living in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and returning “to being a confessor and taking communion to the sick.”

Indeed, the possibility of resignation is not ruled out, but the man born Jorge Bergoglio in Buenos Aires still feels fully committed to carrying on and completing the destiny of his pontificate. Elected pope at the age of 76, a real reform of the Catholic Church was always bound to be unlikely under his pontificate.

Bewilderment from all sides

Instead, his goal and perhaps his vocation has been to open spaces, to create rifts, to shake up obsolete ways of doing, to create movement in a Church that is called to be more a mother than judge, more field hospital than palace; more attentive to the needs of people and the poor than to the desire to increase followers.

Too solitary, too erratic?

Francis has always felt part of his Church, never deviating from the faith of tradition. But at the same time, he has created no small amount of bewilderment among Catholics, with some calling for greater openings and others accusing him of diluting the sacred rites and Christian truths.

Others see a leadership that is perhaps too solitary, activism that is too erratic. Now in the face of an ever precarious physical condition, Francis has not wavered in his commitment to ensuring that those who will come will find a more human and spiritually open Church. Perhaps resignation can wait.

*Originally published Feb. 18, 2025, this article was updated Feb. 27, 2025 with enriched media and reports that the Pope’s condition had improved slightly, and that he had called a meeting of cardinals.