By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
Pope Francis acknowledged on Saturday that he can no longer travel as before due to his knee ligaments, saying his week-long pilgrimage to Canada was "a bit of a test" that showed him he needs to slow down and one day, possibly , backing out.
Speaking to reporters while traveling home from north Nunavut, the 85-year-old Francis stressed that he had not thought of resigning but "the door is open" and there was nothing wrong with a pope stepping down.
"It is not weird.
It is not a catastrophe.
The pope can be changed,” he said, sitting in an airplane wheelchair during a 45-minute news conference.
Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard the papal flight back from Canada, on Saturday, July 30, 2022, where he made a six-day pastoral visit. Guglielmo Mangiapane / AP
Francisco said that, although he has not considered resigning until now, he realizes that he at least
has to slow down.
"I think that at my age and with these limitations, I have to save (my energy) to be able to serve the Church, or on the contrary, think about the possibility of stepping aside," he added.
Francis was peppered with questions about the future of his pontificate after the first trip in which he used a wheelchair, walker and cane to get around, severely limiting his program and his ability to mingle with crowds.
[Many wonder if Pope Francis is about to resign. He denies it]
Earlier this year he injured ligaments in his right knee, and laser and magnetic therapy forced him to cancel a trip to Africa that was scheduled for the first week of July.
The trip to Canada was difficult and there were several moments when Francis clearly struggled getting up and down from chairs.
Nacho Lozano analyzes the apology of Pope Francis for the abuse of white supremacists in Canada
July 26, 202203:06
At the end of his six-day tour, he seemed in good spirits and energized, despite a long day of traveling to the edge of the Arctic on Friday to once again apologize to tribal peoples for the injustices they suffered in residential schools. Church-managed Canadians.
[Pope Francis apologizes to the indigenous people of Canada for the abuses committed by missionaries in boarding schools]
Francisco ruled out knee surgery since, he said, it would not necessarily help him and pointed out that "there are still remains" of the effects of having undergone more than six hours of anesthesia in July 2021 to remove 13 inches (33 cm) of intestine thick.
“I will try to continue making the trips and being close to people because I think it is a way of serving, of being close.
But more than this, I can't say," she noted on Saturday.
In other comments aboard the papal plane, Francis assured that:
[Pope Francis suspends his trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on medical recommendation]
— Agrees that the attempt to eliminate indigenous culture in Canada through a Church-run residential school system amounts to cultural “genocide” and did not use the term because it did not come to mind.
“It is true that I did not use the word because it did not occur to me, but I described a genocide, right?”
Francisco said, "I apologized, I asked forgiveness for this work, which was a genocide."
— He was not opposed to a development of Catholic doctrine on the use of contraception.
Church teaching prohibits artificial contraception.
— He wants to go to kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, although no trip has yet been confirmed.