The Vatican, in its statement, said the situation “at the moment remains under control, and is constantly followed by the doctors.”
The comments appeared to mark a worrying turning point for Benedict, who has been frail but sharp-minded for years and who has now been ex-pope for a longer period than he served as pope.
One close friend to Benedict, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about a delicate subject, said the retired pontiff had become weaker since before Christmas but did not have information about his health in the most recent hours.
“Of course time is not on his side,” the friend said. “Some concerns are surely there.”
After Francis’s general audience, he visited Benedict at a convent inside the Vatican’s ancient walls. The Vatican statement said, “We join [Francis] in prayer for the Pope Emeritus.”
In photos the Vatican has published of Benedict — including on Aug. 27, after a ceremony to name new cardinals — he appears gaunt and hunched. But friends have said he remains clear-minded.
Benedict’s longtime aide, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2013, Benedict became the first pope in six centuries to step down from the job. Given that he’d cited “deteriorated” strength as a factor in his abdication, he has had a long final chapter in retirement. In 2018, he told the Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, that he was “on a pilgrimage toward Home.”
He had pledged in retirement to take up a life of seclusion — reading, writing, going on walks in a stately garden. But his life behind closed doors has ended up being quite complicated — and complicating for the church.
He opted in retirement to wear papal white and chose not to revert to his given name, Joseph Ratzinger. He was embraced as a symbol by a small but vocal band of traditionalists who say Francis is leading the church astray. Though Benedict often stayed quiet on controversial matters, he intervened several times, including once to contradict Francis’s ideas on the nature of clerical abuse and later in objection to floated exceptions on priestly celibacy.
At the same time, he has stated clearly that there is only one top authority figure in the church. “There is one pope, he is Francis,” Benedict said in one interview.
Francis and Benedict have had a publicly warm relationship, and the current pontiff regularly quotes his predecessor and cites him in admiring terms. But their stylistic and policy differences have fostered years of intrigue about their relationship, while also inspiring a Netflix movie.
On one point — the issue of resignation — Francis has described Benedict as a clear-eyed trendsetter. He has said that Benedict’s decision “should not be considered an exception,” and that Benedict had “opened a door” for other pontiffs to follow suit. Many church watchers have speculated that Francis would be reluctant to step down, even if in bad health, if Benedict remained alive, given the headaches that would arise for a church with two ex-popes. But Benedict’s death could eventually allow Francis, 86, to consider stepping down.
Benedict became one of the church’s leading theologians by holding an orthodox line, leading the campaign — first as a cardinal, then as pope — to resist changes brought on by outside forces. His view was that if the church tried to bend with the whims of modern times, its teachings would weaken.
His tenure as pope coincided with the escalation of one of its foremost crises — a wave of clerical abuse cases. And while Benedict went further than his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, defrocking hundreds of priests, he was slow to grasp the systemic nature of the issue.
More recently, his reputation suffered from a church-commissioned German investigation, accusing Benedict of “wrongdoing” in his handling of several cases during his time running the archdiocese of Munich.
