Watch: Pope Francis claims he'll imagine about retiring

Heather Hamilton

July 31, 08:14 AM July 31, 08:22 AM

Pope Francis admits he ought to gradual down.

"I imagine that at my age and with this limitation I have to reduce back again a little little bit to be capable to provide the Church or on the contrary consider about the risk of stepping aside,” Francis mentioned on Saturday while sitting in a wheelchair as he spoke to reporters aboard the plane touring home from his weeklong journey in Canada.

Francis, 85, stressed that he experienced not viewed as resigning but stated his age and issues strolling has introduced him to a slower phase of his papacy.

"I do not imagine I can proceed undertaking journeys with the same rhythm as ahead of," he stated. "But I will try out to keep on to travel in purchase to be near to individuals simply because it is a way of serving.”

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Additional a short while ago, Francis has applied a wheelchair, cane, or a walker to assistance as he dealt with knee suffering induced by a fracture and an inflamed ligament.

The pope reported he favored not to have knee surgery mainly because of the unfavorable aspect consequences of anesthesia experienced final year subsequent an intestinal procedure.

"This, with all honesty, is not a disaster. There can be a change of popes, there is no problem with that," Francis reported. "The door is open. It is a person of the standard selections. Up until finally nowadays, I did not use that door. I did not believe it was necessary to consider of this probability but that does not suggest that the day just after tomorrow I will not begin considering about it.”

Francis claimed the excursion to Canada was “a bit of a exam.”

“It is true that I won't be able to make visits in this issue. Perhaps the type has to adjust, make fewer journeys, make the trips I have promised to make, re-jig points. But it will be the Lord who decides,” Francis additional.

The pope promised he would still visit locations he had currently promised to go, this kind of as South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon and probably Kazakhstan before deciding on potential trips.

In advance of leaving Canada, Francis referred to the massacre of indigenous schoolchildren as a "genocide" after earlier calling it a “cultural destruction” when apologizing for the residential university system that was notable in Canada from the 1890s to the 1940s.