Pope John Paul II Wanted To Quit, Book Says
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ROME, Italy — Pope John Paul II was on the brink of resigning in 2000 because of his poor health, and he considered changing church law to allow popes to quit at age 80. The facts came to light yesterday in a new book by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope’s personal secretary.
“In A Life with Karol,” which will be published initially in Polish and Italian on January 29, Cardinal Dziwisz, a fellow Pole, says John Paul II called a meeting of his closest colleagues in the millennium year to discuss his resignation.
During the meeting, at which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now pope Benedict, was present, the pope discussed whether his increasing frailty because of Parkinson’s disease meant that he should step down as pontiff.
The pope also asked himself “if even the pope should resign from the post at the age of 80,” the age at which cardinals are no longer eligible to elect a new pope.
At the end of the meeting, “he came to the conclusion that he had to submit himself to God’s will, that is, to remain as long as God wanted,” Cardinal Dziwisz said.
John Paul was 79 in 2000 and had been suffering from the degenerative disease for eight years. He died on April 2, 2005, at the age of 84.
