Be VERY careful distinguishing different uses of “most” (“many”, “very many”, “almost all”, “all except a few exceptions”), especially when applying to outliers on other unmeasured dimensions.
My expectation is that mental facilities aren’t the most critical feature of popes, so they’re typically selected such that even a reduction is still sufficient. And there’s likely also active obfuscation of older popes’ mental acuity, so it’s not as obvious to the public.
I won’t speculate on whether there are other measures taken to make sure that living popes are at least somewhat mentally capable. It’s quite likely that they’re lucky in that it doesn’t get to that point very often.
edit: I bothered to actually look for articles on the topic. It seems Benedict XVI did retire in 2013, and didn’t die until 2022. And the current pope is denying he’s planning to retire, but is open to the idea that a health decline could change that. Previous to Benedict XVI’s retirement, it had been ~600 years since a pope had failed to die in office.
I think my speculation stands that a pope’s duties (especially until very recently, when video coverage makes papal activities and appearances extremely widely public) can be compatible with a LOT of health and cognitive degradation.
It’s my sense that most people have severely reduced mental facilities in the year before they die.
At the same time, the public knowledge suggests that all last ten popes had well working mental facilities before they die.
What’s going on here? Does the church have a mechanism to “retire” popes that lose their mental facilities through unnatural death?
Is the church just very lucky?
Be VERY careful distinguishing different uses of “most” (“many”, “very many”, “almost all”, “all except a few exceptions”), especially when applying to outliers on other unmeasured dimensions.
My expectation is that mental facilities aren’t the most critical feature of popes, so they’re typically selected such that even a reduction is still sufficient. And there’s likely also active obfuscation of older popes’ mental acuity, so it’s not as obvious to the public.
I won’t speculate on whether there are other measures taken to make sure that living popes are at least somewhat mentally capable. It’s quite likely that they’re lucky in that it doesn’t get to that point very often.
edit: I bothered to actually look for articles on the topic. It seems Benedict XVI did retire in 2013, and didn’t die until 2022. And the current pope is denying he’s planning to retire, but is open to the idea that a health decline could change that. Previous to Benedict XVI’s retirement, it had been ~600 years since a pope had failed to die in office.
I think my speculation stands that a pope’s duties (especially until very recently, when video coverage makes papal activities and appearances extremely widely public) can be compatible with a LOT of health and cognitive degradation.