Benedict XVI: "I read, I pray. I'm fine."

Italian site may be looking for controversy

Retired Pope Benedict greets Pope Francis at the Vatican. Benedict now lives in a monastery in the Vatican Gardens. CNS photo / L'Ossevatore Romano via Reuters.

An article in the Catholic World News reported that Pope Benedict XVI looked to be more stooped and physically weaker than he had a few months ago according to his old friend, Manfred Lutz, however he remains mentally sound. Lutz informed the Bild Zeitung that Benedict was in full agreement with Pope Francis's theological views. The Italian site, Libero, took this to mean that Benedict was suggesting that he disagrees with Pope Francis on other issues.

“I’m fine. I live like a monk,” Benedict XVI told an old German friend who visited him recently at his new residence in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery on the Vatican grounds. 

Manfred Lutz, a German scholar who is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Academy for Life, told Bild Zeitung that he found the retired Pontiff “physically weaker and a bit more stooped” than a few months earlier, but still mentally alert and cheerful. He said that the Pope-emeritus found himself thoroughly in accord with the theological statements of Pope Francis. 

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