In any case, he confessed thatI don’t think I can move forward at the same pace as before“. “I think at my age (85) and with this limitation (the knee injury that prevents him from walking) I have to reserve some strength to be able to serve the Church. Or I could also consider the possibility of stepping down, which honestly wouldn’t be a disaster, since the pope can be changed without problem.“, he explained.

Throughout the trip to Canada, he maintained his planned schedule, but was unable to celebrate any mass in public due to his mobility issues, and was limited to delivering the homilies. In addition, he always moved around in a wheelchair, from which he got up with enormous fatigue. As a balance, he assured, “I have to limit these efforts a bit”.

In any case, your current idea is “to continue to travel and to be close to people, because I think it is a way of serving“. In this sense, he has a trip to Kazakhstan on the agenda in mid-September and will study an express visit to Ukraine that he could make in the coming weeks. “I have all the good will, but let’s see what the leg says,” he acknowledged.

As so far, the pope explicitly denied he was considering stepping down, but on this occasion hinted that time might be approaching. “The door is open, it’s a normal option, but until today I didn’t knock on that door, I didn’t say I was going to walk into this room, I didn’t feel like I was thinking about this possibility. But that doesn’t mean that the day after tomorrow I won’t think about it,” he assured the 75 journalists who accompanied him on the papal plane.

Before them, he admitted that the trip to three regions of Canada “was also a bit of an ordeal… It’s true that you can’t travel in this state, maybe you have to change your style a bit , reduce, pay the debts of the trips you still have to make, reorganize…”. Benedict XVI decided to resign during his visit to Mexico in March 2012, when he found that he did not have the strength to continue making apostolic journeys. He was 85, the same age Francisco is now.

As for his health, the pope categorically ruled out the possibility of knee surgery. Francisco suffers from acute knee pain caused by cartilage wear and a microfracture resulting from poor posture due to a ligament problem. “Experts say it’s operable, but the problem is the anesthesia. I was under anesthesia for over six hours in July last year and it left me with scars that still last today. You can’t mess with anesthesia. That is why this operation is not suitable for me,” the pope said, sitting in the wheelchair.

The pope showed in any case a incredible physical strength Well, for 45 minutes he fielded questions from reporters, showing no signs of fatigue despite the grueling last day in Canada.

Cultural genocide, colonialism and contraceptives

They asked him why he didn’t use the phrase “cultural genocideto refer to the campaign against indigenous peoples. “It didn’t occur to me, but I apologized for this genocidal action. I condemned this removal of children, the change in their culture, their mentality, their traditions… It was a genocide. You can write that I said it was genocide,” he explained.

A Canadian journalist assured him that “in the American and Canadian Constitutions, the native peoples continue to be dispossessed of their lands, without power over them, because of the papal bulls (of the 15th century) and the Doctrine of Discovery“. From his answer, it seems that the pope is not concerned with the bubbles of the past but with the colonizing pressures of the present.

“In America, that of the English, the French, the Spanish and the Portuguese, there has always been this danger, or rather this mentality: ‘we are superior and these natives do not count’. And it’s serious, and you have to work on what you’re saying (the Doctrine of Discovery), go back and fix the mistakes. But knowing that the same colonialism exists today,” he remarked.

He recalled that there were voices raised against the sending slaves from Africa to America, like “Bartolomé de las Casas and Pedro Claver, but they were in the minority”. “Awareness of human equality came slowly. I say awareness because in today’s unconscious there is still a trace of this colonialist attitude of reducing their culture to ours. It is something that comes from our developed way of life, that sometimes we lose the values ​​that they have”.

“This doctrine of colonization is wrong and unfair and is still used today, perhaps with kid gloves,” he added. He gave the example of bishops in developing countries who ensure that when their governments request funds from an international organization “They also imposed colonialist legislative conditions on them, to slightly modify their way of life.“.

They asked him if he would change Catholic doctrine on contraceptives, and the pope explained that theologians have a duty to reflect openly on doctrine and make proposals, and that the pontiff can say that “they will not not well” and help to “understand the limits”. . He explained that on the other hand a development of dogma and morality is normal. For instance “hWe have officially declared that the use and possession of atomic weapons is immoral; on the death penalty, we are close to immorality. Moral conscience has grown. The key, he said, is “to reason and reflect on faith and morals, towards the roots and essence” of Christianity.

The pope also distanced himself from the harsh declaration signed a week ago by the Holy See in which he warned the German synodal way of schismatic drift. “This statement was made by the Secretary of State. It was a mistake not to sign him as Secretary of State”, he assured. He recalled that in June 2019 he had already written “a letter with everything he had to say on the Synodal Way, and more than that I am not going to say”.

Furthermore, as Primate of Italy, he praised Mario Draghi, who resigned as prime minister a week ago. “No one can say that he is not a man of great international prestige,” he stressed. He also deplored the short duration of governments in Rome and asked political forces for “civic responsibility” before the September 25 elections.