Speaking to reporters while traveling home from northern Nunavut, the 85-year-old Francis stressed that he had not considered resigning, but said “the door is open” and that it was not a bad thing for a pope to step down. “It’s not strange. It’s not a disaster. You can change the pope,” he said while sitting in an airplane wheelchair during a 45-minute press conference. Francis said that while he hadn’t considered quitting until now, he realizes that he should at least slow down. “I think at my age and with these limitations, I have to conserve (my energy) to be able to serve the church, or instead, consider the possibility of stepping aside,” he said. Francis was full of questions about his mouse’s future after the first trip in which he used a wheelchair, walker and cane to get around, sharply curtailing his schedule and ability to socialize with crowds. He strained ligaments in his right knee earlier this year, and continued laser and magnetic therapy forced him to cancel a trip to Africa that was scheduled for the first week of July. The trip to Canada was difficult and included several moments when Francis was clearly in pain as he maneuvered himself up and down from chairs. At the end of his six-day tour, he appeared in high spirits and full of energy, despite a long day traveling to the edge of the Arctic on Friday to again apologize to indigenous peoples for the injustices they suffered in Canada’s church-based residential schools. Francis ruled out surgery on his knee, saying it wouldn’t necessarily help and noting that “there are still traces” of the effects of going under anesthesia for more than six hours in July 2021 to remove 33 centimeters (13 inches) of his large intestine. . “I will try to continue traveling and being close to people because I believe it is a way of service, to be close. But more than that, I can’t say,” he said on Saturday. In other comments on the papal plane, Francis: — They agreed that the attempt to eradicate Indigenous culture in Canada through a church residential school system was tantamount to cultural “genocide.” Francis said he didn’t use the term during his trip to Canada because it didn’t occur to him. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission ruled in 2015 that forcibly removing Indigenous children from their homes and placing them in church-based residential schools to assimilate them into Christian Canadians constituted “cultural genocide.” “It’s true that I didn’t use the word because it didn’t occur to me, but I did describe genocide, didn’t I?” said Francis. “I asked for forgiveness, I asked for forgiveness for this work, which was genocide.” — He suggested that he was not opposed to the development of Catholic doctrine on the use of contraception. Church teaching prohibits artificial contraception. Francis noted that a Vatican think tank recently published the proceedings of a conference where an amendment to the church’s absolute “no” was discussed. He stressed that doctrine could develop over time and that it was the job of theologians to pursue such developments, with the pope ultimately deciding. Francis noted that the church’s teaching on atomic weapons was modified during his pontificate to consider not only the use but also the mere possession of atomic weapons as immoral and to consider the death penalty immoral in all cases. — He confirmed that he hoped to travel to Kazakhstan in mid-September for an interfaith conference where he could meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who has justified the war in Ukraine. Francis also said he wants to go to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, although no trip has yet been confirmed. He said he was hoping to reschedule the trip to South Sudan that he canceled because of knee problems. He said the Congo leg of that trip would probably have to be postponed until next year because of the rainy season.
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