When the Pope is ill, the Italians always gossip on who follows – National

The Pope is so great in everyday Italian life that there are many expressions that make up the light of even a dark event like his death.

“The Pope dies, makes another,” one goes, suggesting how life goes on.

“Every death of the Pope …” begins another, indicating a rare occurrence.

But the one that is most often heard when the pope is actually ill maybe the darkest: “The pope is fine until he is dead.”

That rounds made as Pope Francis near a week At the Gemelli Roman hospital, he fights pneumonia and complex respiratory infections.

While the Vatican provided updates twice a day about its condition and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni She said they “joked as usual” during her visit on Wednesday, all kinds of reports – true and not – abound in Francis’ health.

They have taken over their own lives in the time of chat groups, conspiracy theories and internet memos – not to mention the perennial Roman fixation of the Pope and who could inherit it.

AND Conclave effect

Does not help yes The film nominated for an Oscar Conclave in theaters and made all experts in the secret rules and spectacular dramas involved in the papal elections.

Or that Francis recently extended the dean’s deadline Faculty of Cardinal, not to find someone new to fulfill the key job during the next papal crossing.

Or that in 88 years he is one of the oldest pope ever.

Francis still has a way to outlive Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903 at the age of 93, but he is on his way to the same or surpasses Pope Gregory XII, perhaps best known for the latest Pope Pope Benedict XVI He did it in 2013.

Gregory was 88 years old when he stepped down in 1415 to end the Western schism, according to the Catholic hierarium online.

Francis often said that he would also consider resigning if his health could not continue him, although he had recently said that the Pope’s job was for a living.

Vatican correspondents are usually prepared for the upcoming papal travels at this time of year, but so far no one has been confirmed. Instead, between medical updates, they prepare stories by looking at his life, just in case.

“I think Dictum is” the Pope in line until he is dead “always true,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, former editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Asservatore Romano, who knows how to manage Vatican information.

“It is a very Roman way of speech, which on the one hand represents traditional skepticism towards the Romans and Italians, but on the other, information opacity.”

The Vatican did not allow any member of Francis’s medical team to appear on the camera or give detailed updates about his health, and no his photograph was published from his hospitalization on February 14th.

Papal video rumors

But in order to understand how much the Pope is in Italian life, you just have to consider the second tradition of religiously observed by the Italians: the annual Sanremo Song Festival, a weekly series on RAI television where viewers vote for their favorite vocals in the rise that perform in the kitsch at night, Sometimes an unpleasant competition.

When he was aired last week, he made even more titles than usual, because Francis-ve sick of bronchitis, but he has not yet been at the hospital in the opening in a pre-recorded video, the Sanremo and the first to papacy.

When the popular Italian blog Dagospia then claimed that the video was made almost a year earlier for another event, it broke out near hysteria among the Vatican observers.

The obvious deception suggested that Francis’ latest illness was much worse than it seemed, and asked questions about the firmness of the papacy if the old video was published without his knowledge.

As it turned out, Dagospia was wrong. The video was lawful, recent and shot for Sanremo. But it was true that Francis’s bronchitis was really much worse.

By the end of the week, he was Hospitalized with lung infection This turned into pneumonia.

Episode even though she underlined Truism that the papacy is a thing General public knowledgeThe interest and discussion here, and that speculation about Pope’s health and which could be next, is a national party.

“I am certainly very, very worried,” said Maurizio di Folco, who was treated at the same hospital at the same hospital at the same hospital. “I wish him a speedy recovery and we are deeply praying for him. A very good pope. A great pope!

“We hope he will be with us for a long time.”

Francis Conservative critics

But elsewhere, Francis’ right-wing critics are circulating by alarming by completely inconsistent with their condition.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Francis Nemesis, who was excommunicated last year for the schism, revived his conspiracy about the legitimacy of Francis’ election in 2013, inviting CIA to explore what the conspiracy was a “deep state” to choose.

Francis knows this dynamics well.

“Some wanted me dead,” He said to the letter of Jesuit priests in 2021, speaking of what he learned while he was hospitalized that year for intestinal surgery.

“I know there were even a meeting between priests who thought the pope was worse than what was said. They prepared a conclave.”

It is considered a bad taste to publicly discuss who is up or down in the papal roles of the future conclave, much less to start planning. But in private, Rome was in such a way with such conversations. Taxi drivers talk about passengers, doctors with patients, butchers with customers.

For now, Francis sticks.

On Thursday, the Bulletin said that his overall clinical condition “improved slightly” and that his heart works well. He had breakfast sitting in an armchair and worked with assistants.

“It’s a bigger measure of transparency, but it’s not even complete,” said Christopher Bellitto, a professor of church history at Kean University of New Jersey.

“Surely everyone with the aging of parents and grandparents said,” It’s a lung pneumonia “before the Vatican did.”

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