Pope Francis appeals for prayers for 'very ill' predecessor Benedict - BBC

Pope Francis has said erstwhile Pope Benedict XVI is precise sick and helium has asked pilgrims astatine the Vatican to commune for him.

Benedict, 95, became the archetypal person of the Catholic Church to basal down successful 600 years successful 2013, citing precocious age.

At the extremity of the Pope's last assemblage of the year, helium asked radical to "pray a peculiar supplication for Pope Emeritus Benedict".

The Vatican past said the ex-Pope's wellness had worsened successful caller hours.

"The concern astatine the infinitesimal remains nether control, perpetually followed by doctors," said spokesperson Matteo Bruni.

Pope Francis was addressing a wide assemblage successful the Vatican's Paul VI hallway erstwhile helium looked up from a portion of insubstantial and spoke astir Benedict's declining health.

He past made the abbreviated travel from the hallway to the Vatican Gardens to spot Benedict astatine the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, wherever helium has lived since helium stepped down.

Earlier this period Francis revealed helium often visited his predecessor.

Speaking of Benedict arsenic a "saint" and a antheral of precocious spiritual life, helium said the erstwhile pope was lucid and had a bully consciousness of humour.

The erstwhile Pope has struggled with code for immoderate clip and 2 years agone a Maltese cardinal said Benedict had told caller cardinals that "the Lord has taken distant my code to fto maine admit silence". "He speaks softly but follows your conversation," Pope Francis told Spanish paper ABC.

Cardinals astir the satellite joined Pope Francis successful praying for his predecessor. "In these hard and superior moments, fto america unite successful fervent supplication for our beloved Pope Emeritus," wrote Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, the astir elder African prelate astatine the Vatican until past year.

Benedict XVI was 85 erstwhile successful February 2013 helium amazed Catholics astir the satellite with his determination to measurement down, little than 8 years aft helium had been elected Pope arsenic Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Not since Gregory XII stepped down successful 1415 had a pope resigned.

Benedict had presided implicit his predecessor John Paul's ceremonial Mass. He was the eighth German to go Pope and was known for his conservative, traditionalist views, campaigning against the societal activism of liberation theology.

But his papacy was marked by a ungraded involving kid intersexual maltreatment by priests. Two reports successful 2009 elaborate the grade of paedophilia and cover-ups wrong the Irish Church - and it aboriginal emerged that astir 400 priests had been defrocked by Benedict successful 2011 and 2012.

However, earlier this twelvemonth the erstwhile Pope accepted that errors had been made successful handling intersexual maltreatment cases portion helium was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

A German enquiry commissioned by the Church recovered that helium had failed to enactment successful 4 cases. Benedict denied wrongdoing but asked forgiveness for immoderate "grievous fault".

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the existent archbishop of Munich, said helium had seen Benedict successful September and called connected churchgoers to see him successful their prayers.

Although Benedict was the archetypal Pope for 600 years to basal down, Pope Francis made wide successful his Spanish interrogation this period that helium excessively had signed a missive of resignation successful 2013 "in lawsuit of wellness impediment oregon whatever", handing it to Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican caput of authorities astatine the time.