Originally published at National Catholic Register
ANALYSIS: The Holy Father will turn 88 next week.
Pope Francis, who turns 88 on Dec. 17, is the second-oldest pope in modern history (after Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903 at the age of 93). Pope Benedict XVI resigned at the age of 85 and went on to live almost another decade as pope emeritus. Pope St. John Paul II was almost 85 when he died in 2005.
The world is getting used to older leaders, both inside and outside the Church. President-elect Donald Trump will be almost 83 — and the oldest president in U.S. history — at the end of his term in 2029. It’s increasingly normal to see octogenarians and even nonagenarians continuing to work in various fields.
Yet longer lifespans raise the prospect of increased debility. President Joe Biden withdrew from his reelection campaign in July after evidence of age-related decline made victory seem impossible. St. John Paul struggled with Parkinson’s disease for the last years of his life. And when Pope Benedict stepped down in 2013 — the first pontiff to do so in nearly six centuries — he cited “the increasing burden of age,” which he said had
