When the pope is sick: Italians gossip about who comes next
Rome, Feb 20: The pope looms so large in everyday Italian life that there are lots of expressions that make light of even a dark event like his death.
“A pope dies, they make another,” goes one, suggesting how life goes on.
“Every death of a pope .” starts another, indicating a rare occurrence.
But the one most frequently heard when a pope is actually sick is perhaps the darkest: “The pope is fine until he’s dead.” That one’s been making the rounds as Pope Francis nears a week in Rome’s Gemelli hospital, battling pneumonia and a complex respiratory infection.
While the Vatican has been providing twice-daily updates on his condition and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said they “joked around as usual” during her visit Wednesday, all kinds of reports – true and not – abound about Francis’ health.
They’ve taken on a life of their own in an age of chat groups, conspiracy theories and internet memes – not to mention the perennial Roman fixation on the pope and who might succeed him.
It doesn’t help that the Oscar-nominated movie “Conclave” is in theatres and has made everyone an expert in the arcane rules and spectacular drama involved in a papal election.
Or that Francis recently extended the term of the dean of the College of Cardinals rather than find someone new to fill a key job during the next papal transition. Or that at 88, he is one of the oldest popes ever.
Francis still has a way to go to outlive Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903 at 93. But he’s on track to equal or surpass Pope Gregory XII, perhaps best known for being the most recent pope to resign until Pope Benedict XVI did so in 2013. Gregory was 88 when he stepped down in 1415 to end the Western Schism, according to online resource Catholic Hierarchy.
Francis has frequently said he, too, would consider resigning if his health made him unable to continue, though more recently he said a pope’s job is for life.
Vatican correspondents are usually preparing for upcoming papal trips at this time of year, but none are confirmed so far. Instead, between medical updates, they are preparing stories looking back at his life, just in case.
“I think the dictum of A pope is fine until he’s dead’ is always true,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, former editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, who knows about how Vatican information is managed. “It’s a very Roman way of speaking that represents, on the one hand, the traditional skepticism of Romans and Italians, but on the other hand, an informational opacity.” The Vatican hasn’t allowed any member of Francis’ medical team to appear on camera or give detailed updates on his health, and no photos of him have been released since his February 14 hospitalisation.
A papal video fuels rumours
But to understand how entwined the pope is in Italian life, one only needs to consider another tradition religiously observed by Italians: the annual Sanremo song festival, a weeklong series of shows on RAI television in which viewers vote for their favourite rising vocalists who perform nightly in the kitschy, sometimes bawdy contest. (AP)
New Zealand households continue to face pressure of housing costs
Wellington, Feb 20: Nearly 20 per cent of New Zealand households spent 40 per cent or more of their income on housing in the year ended June 2024, up from 18.2 per cent of households the previous year, according to figures released by the statistics department Stats NZ on Thursday.
Households spent an average of 22.2 NZ dollars per 100 NZ dollars of income on housing in this period, up from 20.8 NZ dollars in 2019, Stats NZ said.
One-third of low-income households in New Zealand spent more than 40 percent of their income on housing in the year ended June 2024, the department said, adding people spent a higher proportion of their money on housing than they had in the past, although incomes increased.
“This creates further pressure on a household’s budget, along with things like groceries and petrol getting more expensive over the same time period,” Stats NZ household financial statistics spokesperson Chris Pooch said.
The average annual household equivalized disposable income (before housing costs) increased by 5.5 percent, whereas average weekly rent payments increased by 9 percent and weekly mortgage payments increased by 8.7 percent between the years ended June 2023 and June 2024, statistics show.
About 38.2 per cent of households felt that their income was “not enough” or “only just enough” to meet their everyday needs, with the figure increasing over the last two years, Xinhua news agency reported.
About 14.8 per cent of households that owned or partly owned their home spent more than 40 per cent of their disposable income on housing costs in the year ended June 2024, feeling increasing pressure from mortgage payments, it said. (IANS)