Future popes will be required to retire at a fixed age, according to secret plans being discussed because of the recurring health woes of John Paul II, it was reported today.
Senior Roman Catholic Church sources said cardinals who will select the next pontiff have discussed the need to choose a successor who is open to a retirement age, most likely 80.
They said the cardinals want to avoid a repeat of recent years in which John Paul’s ailments forced him to turn decision-making over to a small group of senior aides, The Times of London reported.
The creation of a retirement age would end a tradition that has lasted 2,000 years – that a pope serves until death.
Disclosure of the secret plan comes as officials said John Paul II’s health had stabilized following his emergency hospitalization.
The 84-year-old pontiff will remain at a Rome hospital for “a few more days,” mainly as a precaution against complications, such as pneumonia, the Vatican said.
“I think everyone has to be calm because there is no reason for alarm today,” said papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
Navarro-Valls, John Cardinal Ratzinger and Angelo Cardinal Sodano were identified by Vatican sources as the men who have virtually run the church in recent years.
The pope was rushed to Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital before midnight Tuesday after his battle with the flu took a sudden turn for the worse.
He suffered an acute attack of laryngospasm, a blockage of air to the lungs, officials said.
But yesterday, Italian Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia visited the hospital and said, “He is improving. The doctors are optimistic.”
Expressions of concern and prayers poured in from the Philippines to the pope’s native Poland.
“I pray that we can see or hear him again,” said Maria Pasnik, 46, a housewife in the pope’s hometown of Wadowice.
At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, some 500 people, twice the typical turnout, attended the 1 p.m. Mass.
“Anytime he’s rushed to the hospital, you’re concerned, as a Catholic,” said Roger Chavez, 48, of Fort Worth, Texas.
Vincent Leone, 68, of Wayne, N.J., said, “You feel bad because any human being has to go through suffering. “Today it’s for him, tomorrow is for me. It’s the reality of life. Not even the pope gets to escape death.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Americans’ “thoughts and prayers are with the holy father.”
At the pontiff’s hospital, Navarro-Valls said tests showed John Paul’s heart and respiration rates were normal.
He felt well enough to participate from his bed in a Mass celebrated by his secretary, said Navarro-Valls, himself a doctor.
He said John Paul did not lose consciousness or require a tracheotomy, the insertion of a tube into his windpipe to help him breathe.
Navarro-Valls joked that the reason the pope was taken by ambulance to the hospital was because “the subway doesn’t go that far.”
Officials said John Paul’s Parkinson’s disease was a factor in his latest problem.
His inability to hold his back up straight has left his lungs and diaphragm in a crushed position, said Javier Cardinal Lozano Barragan, the Vatican’s top health official.
With Post Wire Services
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Opening our hearts
‘I pray that we can see or hear him again.’ – Maria Pasnik, 46, of the pope’s hometown of Wadowice, Poland