Pope Francis has said former Pope
Benedict XVI is very ill and he has asked pilgrims at the Vatican to pray for
him.
Benedict, 95, became the first
leader of the Catholic Church to stand down in 600 years in 2013, citing
advanced age.
At the end of the Pope's final
audience of the year, he asked people to "pray a special prayer for Pope
Emeritus Benedict".
The Vatican then said the
ex-Pope's health had worsened in recent hours.
"The situation at the moment remains under control, constantly followed by doctors," said spokesman Matteo
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Pope Francis was addressing a
general audience in the Vatican's Paul VI hall when he looked up from a piece
of paper and spoke about Benedict's declining health.
He then made the short trip from
the hall to the Vatican Gardens to see Benedict at the Mater Ecclesiae
monastery, where he has lived since he stepped down.
Earlier this month Francis
revealed he frequently visited his predecessor.
Speaking of Benedict as a
"saint" and a man of high spiritual life, he said the former
pope was lucid and had a good sense of humour.
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The former Pope has struggled
with speech for some time and two years ago a Maltese cardinal said Benedict
had told new cardinals that "the Lord has taken away my speech to let me
appreciate silence". "He speaks softly but follows your conversation,"
Pope Francis told Spanish newspaper ABC
Cardinals around the world joined
Pope Francis in praying for his predecessor. "In these difficult and
serious moments, let us unite in fervent prayer for our dear Pope
Emeritus," wrote Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, the most senior African
prelate at the Vatican until last year.
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When the Pope took new cardinals
to meet him at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in August, Benedict looked
frail but he shook them all by the hand and engaged with them.
Benedict XVI was 85 when in
February 2013 he surprised Catholics around the world with his decision to step
down, less than eight years after he had been elected Pope as Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger.
Not since Gregory XII stepped
down in 1415 had a pope resigned.
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Benedict had presided over his
predecessor John Paul's funeral Mass. He was the eighth German to become Pope
and was known for his conservative, traditionalist views, campaigning against
the social activism of liberation theology.
But his papacy was marked by a
scandal involving child sexual abuse by priests. Two reports in 2009 detailed
the extent of paedophilia and cover-ups within the Irish Church - and it later
emerged that almost 400 priests had been defrocked by Benedict in 2011 and
2012.
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However, earlier this year the
former Pope accepted that errors had been made in handling sexual abuse cases
while he was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.
A German inquiry commissioned by
the Church found that he had failed to act in four cases. Benedict denied
wrongdoing but asked forgiveness for any "grievous fault".
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the
current archbishop of Munich, said he had seen Benedict in September and called
on churchgoers to include him in their prayers.
Although Benedict was the first
Pope for 600 years to stand down, Pope Francis made clear in his Spanish
interview this month that he too had signed a letter of resignation in 2013
"in case of health impediment or whatever", handing it to Cardinal
Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state at the time.
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By Paul Kirby || BBC News
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