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| Thursday, 2 October 2003 |
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Top cardinal urges prayers for Pope BERLIN, Wednesday (Reuters) A top cardinal called on the world's one billion Roman Catholics to pray for Pope John Paul, who he said was in "a bad way". The ailing 83-year-old pontiff on Sunday put perhaps his last stamp on the group that will chose his successor, naming 31 new cardinals. Many of the new "princes" are from the developing world, boosting the chances of another non-Italian pope. "He is in a bad way," Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger the German head of the Vatican body which oversees doctrinal matters, was quoted on Tuesday as saying. "We should pray for the Pope," Ratzinger told Germany's Bunte magazine in an interview conducted last Monday. The Polish pontiff is suffering from Parkinson's Disease and missed a general audience last week which the Vatican insisted was due to a "minor" intestinal problem. An aide to the cardinal said it was amazing how the pontiff carried on. "He can't walk and stand anymore but he is a hero for the faithful. The fact that he doesn't give up despite his illness makes him even more credible," Ratzinger's private secretary Georg Gaenswein told Bunte. Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the pope probably took on too much, but it was not his job to stop him. At the Vatican, the pope received several Filipino bishops and some Polish pilgrims on Tuesday and preparations were going ahead for his weekly general audience on Wednesday. The increasingly frail pope was particularly weak earlier this month on a trip to Slovakia and needed help reading his sermons. Gaenswein said the Pope would not stop travelling. "When he is no longer allowed to travel, then dear God will come for him," he was quoted as saying. Ratzinger rejected suggestions he might make a good pope. Asked whether he could imagine a black pope succeeding Pope John Paul, Ratzinger said: "Yes, why not? But I don't think that will happen because of course the number of white cardinals is much bigger. But of course there are many excellent figures who are suited for this office among my black colleagues." Only six of the new cardinals appointed by the pope on Sunday were Italian. Pope John Paul became the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years when he was elected 25 years ago next month. New entries from Mexico, Nigeria, Sudan, Brazil, Ghana, India, Vietnam and Guatemala boosted the possibility that the next pope may come from the developing world. |
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