David Gibson, director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture, is closely following the news regarding the health of Pope Francis, who remains hospitalized with pneumonia. Listen to his full interview with the Canandian public broadcast service.
INTERVIEWER: Pope Francis is known for his tenacity, his desire to keep going no matter what— one of the reasons that that he so beloved around the world. We saw him making his regular appearances and duties and tours around the world just a few weeks ago, days actually, before this latest stint in hospital began. What are your thoughts on this?
DAVID GIBSON: Well, yes, it’s not surprising. You know, he pushes himself. He’s a very stubborn 88-year-old Jesuit priest. He admits it himself. He said, “I have a bad character. I’m a terrible patient.” He doesn’t listen to his doctors. [H]e had bronchitis, really serious bronchitis, for a week before this. He couldn’t read his his own speeches. He insisted on going to an outdoor event. So, you know, look, he’s the Pope. It’s hard to tell him, “You’ve got to go to the hospital, you’ve got to slow down, you’ve got to take care of yourself.” He’s like an old Jesuit missionary. He wants to die in the saddle.
INTERVIEWER: What do you think is happening in his inner circle and in the uppermost echelons of the Vatican right now?
GIBSON: They’re praying for the best and preparing for the worst. They want to be very clear—and they have in these last 24 hours—to quash any rumors of resignation or even of a conclave. The problem is that the shark starts circling as soon as the pope indicates that [he] might resign. It gets really, you know, gnarly in terms of internal Vatican politics. Listen, go look at the Oscar-nominated film Conclave. … It’s a little bit dramatized, but not totally wrong. When Pope Francis was first elected, he followed Pope Benedict, who was the first pope to resign in 600 years. Initially, Pope Francis said that should be normal. Popes one day will, as a matter of course, resign when they feel they can’t do the job anymore. But when he started saying that, all this speculation, all these machinations, started happening. So in recent years and in recent months, he said, “Look, I’m not going to resign. That’s not the way this is going to go, basically, I’ll die with my boots on, because they want it.” They [the inner circle] want to quash all of that politicking that goes on that’s unseemly in one aspect, and also it’s not the image that they want to project around the pope at this time. They just want people to be praying for the health of the pope. And hey, he may recover.
