Vatican says health of retired pope Benedict XVI ‘worsening’

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI ’s health has worsened over past hours due to vanced age and doctors are constantly monitoring his condition, Vatican said Wednesday, as Pope Francis appealed to faithful to pray for his “very ill” predecessor “until end.”

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said Francis went to visit frail, 95-year-old Benedict in monastery on Vatican grounds where he has lived since retiring in February 2013.

“Regarding health condition of emeritus pope, for whom Pope Francis asked for prayers at end of his general audience this morning, I can confirm that in last hours, a worsening due to vanced age has happened,″ Bruni said in a written statement.

“ situation at moment remains under control, constantly monitored by doctors,” statement said.

At end of his customary Wednesday audience with public in a Vatican auditorium, Francis departed from his prepared remarks to say that Benedict is “very ill” and asked faithful to pray for retired pontiff.

Francis didn’t elaborate on Benedict’s condition.

“I would like to ask you all for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who is sustaining church in silence,” Francis said. “Remember him — he is very ill — asking Lord to console him and to sustain him in this testimony to love for church, until end.”

After hour-long audience, “Pope Francis went to Mater Ecclesiae monastery to visit Benedict XVI. Let us all unite with him in prayer for emeritus pope,″ Bruni said.

Benedict, who was first pontiff to resign in 600 years, has become increasingly frail in recent years as he dedicated his post-papacy life to prayer and meditation.

When Benedict turned 95 in April, his longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, said retired pontiff was in good spirits, ding that “naturally he is physically relatively weak and fragile, but rar lucid.”

Francis also paid a visit to Benedict at monastery four months ago. occasion was Francis’ latest ceremony elevating churchmen to cardinal rank, and new “princes of church” accompanied him to monastery for brief greeting.

Vatican released a photo at time that showed a very thin-looking Benedict clasping Francis’ hand as current and past pontiff smiled at each or.

In his first years of retirement, Benedict attended a couple of cardinal-elevating ceremonies in St. Peter’s Basilica. But in recent years, he wasn’t strong enough to attend long service.

He was elevated to cardinal’s rank in 1977 by n-pontiff, Paul VI. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,  German prelate and ologian long served as Vatican’s doctrinal orthodox watchdog. He was elected pontiff in 2005.

Benedict startled a room full of Vatican prelates by announcing, in Latin, in February 2013 that he would step down as pope in two weeks. Some church tritionalists were dismayed by his decision.

Francis has praised Benedict’s decision as a courageous acknowledgement that physical frailty no longer left him able to fully serve world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.

Given his own health history, including a knee ligament problem that has forced him to use a wheelchair or a cane, Francis has said that retirement is something he’d consider, if situation warranted it.

In an interview earlier this month with Spanish newspaper ABC, Francis revealed that shortly after fellow cardinals elected him to succeed Benedict in papacy, he wrote a resignation letter to have on hand in case medical problems impeded him from carrying out his duties.

But in same interview, Francis played down his mobility challenge, saying one governs with he, not knee.

In Benedict’s native Germany, he of that nation’s bishops’ conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, joined in Francis’ call for prayers.

“My thoughts are with emeritus pope,” Baetzing told German news agency dpa. “I call on faithful in Germany to pray for Benedict XVI.”

In Berlin, Chancellor Olaf Scholz “wishes German pope, as we say, a good recovery and his thoughts are with him,” government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann said during a regular government news conference.