The papal health watch is underway - again.
Pope Benedict XVI has reached the age John Paul II was at his death in April 2005, and every footfall, stumble or steps with a cane is watched for signs of impending doom.
A U.K. Catholic news site, TotalCatholic.com picked up word from Vaticanistas that the pope has "arthrosis".
Their Rome correspondent quotes Andrea Tornielli at the Vatican Insider, who said the pope asked to use the mobile platform used by his predecessor, because he's afflicted with a "a degenerative, non-inflammatory joint disease" that the hip, knee, ankle and shoulder joints...
The friction of the joint surfaces increases by overexertion and the shock absorbing function diminishes. Movement is possible, but restricted, and usually painful. Long travel is a problem.
Long travel is ahead for Benedict. He's scheduled to visit Africa in two weeks and there's no mention of any changes in the schedule. Benedict never had the globe-trotting agenda of John Paul in that pope's early years.
But if you compared both pope's travels their early 80's Benedict has had more journeys outside Europe, says Matthew Bunson, editor of The Catholic Almanac and a biography of Benedict.
Last month, the pope abruptly began using a mobile transport platfrom bequeathed by John Paul to traverse the football-field-length aisle of St. Peter's.
Barbie Latza Nadeau was already speculating on Benedict's well-being -- and prospects for the pope's retirement -- last month at The Daily Beast. She wrote:
... When he headed the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, he tried to retire twice "due to poor health," but his predecessor John Paul II refused to let him go. He acknowledged in a biography co-written with German journalist Peter Seewald that he saw nothing wrong with retiring from the papacy: "If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign."
Prominent Italian Vatican journalist Antonio Socci fueled further panic last month when he wrote in Libero newspaper that this pope could call it quits next spring. "For now, he [Joseph Ratzinger's personal assumption], is saying that this may be true but I hope the story does not reach the news," Socci wrote. "But this rumor is circulating high up in the Vatican and therefore deserves close attention. The pope has not rejected the possibility of his resignation when he turns 85 in April next year."