The Vatican announced Wednesday that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s health has deteriorated in recent hours due to his advanced age, and physicians are continually monitoring his status, as Pope Francis urged the faithful to pray for his “very ill” predecessor “till the end.”

Francis went to see the elderly, 95-year-old Pope Emeritus Benedict in the monastery on Vatican grounds where he has lived since retiring in February 2013, according to Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni.

“Regarding the health of the emeritus pope, for whom Pope Francis asked for prayers at the close of his general audience this morning, I can report that a worsening owing to advanced age has occurred in the recent hours,” Bruni stated in a written statement.

“The situation is currently under control and is being being followed by doctors,” the statement read.

Francis deviated from his scheduled statements at the end of his routine Wednesday encounter with the public in a Vatican auditorium to say Benedict is “very unwell” and begged the faithful to pray for the retiring pontiff.
Francis did not go into detail on Benedict’s illness.

“I would want to ask you all to pray for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who is keeping the church in silence,” Francis added. “Remember him – he is very sick — and pray for the Lord to console him and maintain him in this demonstration of love for the church till the end.”

“After the hour-long audience, Pope Francis travelled to the Mater Ecclesiae convent to see Benedict XVI,” the Vatican said. “Let us join him in praying for the emeritus Pope,” Bruni remarked.

Benedict, the first pontiff to resign in 600 years, has grown feeble in recent years as he has committed his post-papacy life to prayer and meditation.

Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, Benedict’s longtime secretary, claimed the retiring pontiff was in good spirits when he turned 95 in April, adding that “naturally he is physically relatively weak and feeble, but rather coherent.”

Francis also paid Benedict a visit to the monastery four months ago. The occasion was Francis’ most recent ceremony conferring cardinal status on churchmen, and the new “princes of the church” joined him to the abbey for the brief welcome.

The Vatican issued a photo at the time of Benedict clasping Francis’ hand as the present and former pontiffs smiled at each other.

Benedict attended a couple of cardinal-elevation ceremonies in St. Peter’s Basilica during his first years of retirement. However, in recent years, he has not been able to attend the lengthy service.

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Paul VI, the pontiff at the time, elevated him to the rank of cardinal in 1977. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a German prelate and theologian, served as the Vatican’s doctrinal orthodox watchdog for many years. In 2005, he was elected Pope.

In February 2013, Benedict surprised a meeting full of Vatican prelates by declaring in Latin that he would stand down as Pope in two weeks. His decision outraged several church traditionalists.

Francis has commended Benedict’s decision as a brave admission that his physical fragility no longer allowed him to adequately serve the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.

Given his own health history, which includes a knee ligament problem that has caused him to use a wheelchair or a cane, Francis has stated that if the situation merited it, he would consider retiring.

In an interview with the Spanish daily ABC earlier this month, Francis disclosed that shortly after fellow cardinals elected him to succeed Benedict as Pope, he composed a resignation letter to have on hand in case medical issues prevented him from carrying out his duties.

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In the same interview, Francis downplayed his mobility issue, noting that one governs with the head, not the knee.

Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, the president of the bishops’ conference in Benedict’s native Germany, joined Francis’ call for prayers.

“My thoughts are with the emeritus Pope,” Baetzing said, according to the German news agency dpa. “I appeal to the German faithful to pray for Benedict XVI.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz “wishes the German pope a good recovery and his thoughts are with him,” government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann said during a routine government news conference in Berlin.