Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's condition remains stable, the Vatican said today, as Catholics prayed for the 95-year-old former pontiff whose health has seriously deteriorated.
The Vatican said that had he had rested well overnight and taken part in a mass held in his bedroom.
The German, who in 2013 was the first pope since the Middle Ages to resign as head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has become increasingly fragile over the years.
Pope Francis said this week that his predecessor, whose birth name is Joseph Ratzinger, was "very ill".
Emeritus Benedict moved out of the papal palace and into a former convent within the Vatican when he retired.
Pope Francis called for people around the world to pray for him, before visiting him at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery.
The Vatican later confirmed the ex-pope's health had worsened "due to advancing age", while a Vatican source told AFP it began deteriorating "about three days ago".
"It is his vital functions that are failing, including his heart," the source said, adding that no hospital admission was planned, as he has the "necessary medical equipment" at home.
The Vatican statement said Emeritus Benedict was receiving constant medical attention and his condition was under control.
The Rome diocese was set to offer a special mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict at the Basilica of St John Lateran later today.
German response
In Germany, in the church of St Oswald in Marktl am Inn, where the former pope was baptised, a photo of Benedict was set up on a tripod next to a baptistery.
Photos from his 2006 trip to the town line the walls. A red candle burns on the floor. Onlookers occasionally enter the white building, topped by a black bell tower.
One of them, 43-year-old Tobias Ferstl, prayed with his eyes closed for several minutes in front of the photograph.
"I was passing through, so I decided to stop by the birthplace of the Pope Emeritus," the devout Catholic, an altar server at Regensburg Cathedral, told AFP.
"I don't feel any great sadness or astonishment, but rather gratitude," he said, despite a few tears filling his eyes. Benedict was "a gentle person", he said.
Meanwhile German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich, told churchgoers: "This morning I received the news that there is great concern in Rome about the health of the Pope Emeritus. And so we especially want to include him in our prayers,"
Benedict was 78 when he succeeded the long-reigning and popular John Paul II in April 2005.
His eight-year pontificate was marked by multiple crises, including the global clerical sex abuse scandal, which has dogged him in retirement as well.
A damning report for the German church in January 2022 accused him of personally having failed to stop four predatory priests in the 1980s while archbishop of Munich.
Emeritus Benedict has denied wrongdoing, but in a letter released after the report, asked "for forgiveness".
The former pope has appeared increasingly frail in recent months, using a wheelchair, but was still receiving visitors.
