Former Pope Benedict is 'very sick', says the Vatican and asks for prayers for the 95-year-old 

Pope Francis has called for prayers for his predecessor, the former pope Benedict XVI, who he claims is 'very sick'. 

'I would like to ask all of you to pray a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict... To remember him, because he is very ill, asking the Lord to console and support him,' Francis said at his general audience. 

Francis made the surprise appeal at the end of his audience at the Vatican this morning, giving no details. 

Benedict, 95, served as the head of the Church and the sovereign of the Vatican City State from April 2005 until his resignation in February 2013.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI gestures at the Munich Airport before his departure to Rome, June 22, 2020

In this Nov. 28, 2020 file photo, Pope Francis (R) hold hands with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (L) as he pays him a visit at the Vatican

He was the first pontiff to resign in 600 years and cited advancing age as a key factor limiting his capabilities to carry out his papal duties. 

Francis has previously hailed the decision of his predecessor to resign amid old age.

It was his stepping down that paved the way for Francis' election as the first pope from South America.

Earlier this month, the incumbent pope revealed that he too submitted a resignation letter soon after his election in 2013 that would take effect should illness prevent him from fulfilling his duties.  

Pope Francis, 86, revealed that soon after his election in 2013 he submitted a resignation letter that would take effect should illness prevent him from fulfilling his duties

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI gestures at the Munich Airport before his departure to Rome, June 22, 2020

Francis, who turned 86 this year, said he gave the letter to then Secretary of Vatican City State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

He is largely in good health, though in recent months has struggled with debilitating knee pain that left him in a wheelchair. 

He has since opted to use a cane during public appearances, though played down the affliction in an interview with Spanish newspaper ABC in which he declared: 'One governs with the head not the knee.'

Francis made the comment when he was asked what happens if health issues suddenly leaves a pope unable to do his job.

'In practice there is already a rule,' Francis revealed, adding, 'I have already signed my renunciation.'

German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - who later became Pope Benedict XVI - is pictured after he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising in this 1977 file photo

It has been nearly 10 years since Benedict resigned as pope, but his papacy was wracked with scandals.

Benedict - the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - admitted as much in his last large public audience prior to his resignation in 2013 when he said there were times during his papacy 'when the seas were rough and the wind blew against us and it seemed that the Lord was sleeping'.

Child abuse scandals hounded much of his time as pope. He ordered an official inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops.

And scandal hit closer to home in 2012 when his own butler was unmasked as the source of leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican's business dealings.

The first German pope for 1,000 years, Benedict happily visited his homeland three times and confronted his country's dark past when he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

Calling himself 'a son of Germany,' he prayed and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, most of them Jews, died there during World War Two.

Benedict was forcibly enrolled in the Hitler Youth during World War Two but was never a member of the Nazi party. His deeply Catholic family in rural Bavaria opposed Hitler's regime.

But one trip to Germany also prompted the first major crisis of his pontificate. In a university lecture he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying Islam had only brought evil to the world and that it was spread by the sword.

Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, waves from a balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican after being elected by the conclave of cardinals, April 19, 2005

The pope later said he regretted any misunderstanding the speech caused, but only after widespread protests that included attacks on churches in the Middle East and the killing of a nun in Somalia.

In a move widely seen as conciliatory, he made a historic trip to predominantly Muslim Turkey in 2006 and prayed in Istanbul's Blue Mosque with the city's grand mufti.

Benedict made a successful trip to the United States in 2008 where he apologised for the sexual abuse scandal, comforted abuse victims and promised paedophile priests would be rooted out.

But 2009 became an annus horribilis for Benedict as he made one misstep after another.

The Jewish world, and many Catholics, were outraged after he lifted the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops, one of whom was a notorious Holocaust denier. He later said the Vatican should have researched him better on the Internet.

The pope prompted international outrage again in March 2009, telling reporters on a plane taking him to Africa that the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS only worsened the problem. 

In this file photo taken on November 28, 2020 and released on February 9, 2022 by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis (L) during a visit to Pope Benedict XVI at his residence of the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is greeted by Cardinals as he arrives to attend a consistory ceremony in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican February 22, 2014

Despite his advanced age, Benedict is still plagued by scandal.

A report published in January 2022 on sexual abuse in the archdiocese from 1945 to 2019 accused him of failing to take action against clerics in four cases when he was Archbishop of Munich.

Benedict acknowledged errors had occurred in the handling of cases while he held that position and asked for forgiveness, though his lawyers argued that he was not directly to blame.

In November, a court spokesperson said Benedict plans to defend himself in a civil lawsuit lodged at a German court by a man who accused him of helping to cover up historical abuse.

A so-called declaratory action was brought in June on behalf of a man, then 38-years old, who said he was abused by a priest as a child.

The complaint targets a priest, identified as Peter H., and Benedict who was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, as well as his successor Cardinal Friedrich Wetter and another church official.