ROME — A day after Pope Benedict XVI stunned Roman Catholics by announcing that he would resign at the end of the month, the Vatican disclosed new details about his physical well-being on Tuesday, saying he had been fitted with a heart pacemaker a decade ago but that had not influenced his decision to become the first pope in almost 600 years to step down.
The disclosure about the device, whose existence was not widely known, came as the Vatican grappled with a series of logistical questions raised by a decision that gave Benedict just 17 days to wind up his almost eight-year papacy.
At a news conference, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman said the pacemaker was installed some years ago, while the pope was still a cardinal before his election in 2005. The batteries were replaced three months ago in a routine prodecure that had not influenced the pope’s thinking about resigning, Father Lombardi said.
The intervention was “just a routine change of batteries, not an important operation.”
“This did not weigh on his decision, it is more about his forces diminishing.”
When he announced his resignation on Monday, the pope cited advancing years and weakness, saying his strength “has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”
Greg Burke, the Vatican’s senior communications adviser, said the pacemaker was fitted roughly 10 years ago — a period when Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was the head of the Vatican’s main doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“You don’t resign because you have a pacemaker or because you have a new battery for a pacemaker,” Mr. Burke said.
Before his election as pope, some Vatican analysts recalled, the pope spent several years as a close advisor to his ailing predecessor, John Paul II, whose health deteriorated with Parkinson’s disease and other ailments that left him severely debilitated, an example that could have influenced Benedict’s thinking about the impact of infirmity on the papal office.
Father Lombardi said the pope would continue his day-to-day activities until the end of the month and confirmed that appointments that had already been fixed would be maintained. Some parts of his program would be modified to take into account heightened interest in the pope during his final days in office, Father Lombardi indicated.
The Ash Wednesday celebration, for instance, beginning the 40-day period of Lent preceding Easter, which usually takes place in a small church on Aventine Hill, would instead be held in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican to allow a greater number of faithful to attend, Father Lombardi said.
“Today, well Tuesdays for the pope have always been a day for prayer, study, reflection and preparation of his homilies, and he has a general audience tomorrow, Mass in the afternoon and an important conversation with priests on Thursday,” Father Lombardi said. “It’s a likely supposition that the pope is working on these reflections that he will make in the next few days and what he has to do in the coming weeks.”
But while the pope’s life would be business as usual until the end of his papacy on Feb. 28, officials acknowledged that what would follow was a bit of a work in process.
Benedict’s announcement on Monday was the first papal resignation in 598 years, and it placed him among a tiny handful of history’s 265 recognized popes to step down. Before Benedict, the last to resign was Gregory XII in 1415 after 10 years in office as the church faced a leadership crisis known as the Great Western Schism.
“There are a series of questions that remain to be seen, also on the part of the pope himself, even if it is a decision that he had made some time ago,” Father Lombardi said. “How he will live afterward, which will be very different from how he lives now, will require time and tranquillity and reflection and a moment of adaptation to a new situation.”
Even though the canonic code and the Apostolic Constitution of the Holy See regulate the decision to resign from the papacy, the occurrence was rare enough to have caught Vatican officials off guard. The officials, Father Lombardi said, would have to brush up on specific questions, like whether the pope’s papal ring, with which he seals important documents, would be destroyed, as is the case when a pope dies.
“We’ve had to take the Apostolic Constitution in hand and look at the norms to see what to do and adapt an unprecedented situation. There are lots of questions that are foreseen legally, but we don’t immediately have the answers,” he said.
The conclave, or gathering of cardinals that will meet to choose the pope’s successor will take place between 15 and 20 days after the resignation becomes official. The pope would “surely” remain silent on the process of electing a successor, Father Lombardi said, and “will not interfere in any way.”
Father Lombardi said that should a new pope be elected before Easter, enabling the clergy to tend to their traditional duties, the Ash Wednesday rite will be the last formal celebration the pope will hold in St. Peter’s.
His final audience, on Feb. 27, will be moved to St. Peter’s Square instead of the usual indoor venue used in winter “to allow the faithful to say goodbye to the pope.”
