Is Cardinal Kurt Koch retired?
Swiss cardinal Kurt Koch could retire – but how does the Pope decide?
In a few days, the only Swiss spa card Kurt Koch will be 75 years old. This is actually the official “pension age” in the Vatican. But it is still unclear whether the Pope Francis, which is released in the health, releases him to retire.
Prospective pensioners often deal with the upcoming retirement for months, even for years. As a rule, you also know what time this happens.
However, these things are a little different for bishops and cardinals. They only retire at the age of 75. Under one condition: the Pope must agree. Kurt Koch, the former Bishop of Basel, is currently the only Swiss spa cardinal. He turns 75 on March 15. And it is still unclear to him whether Pope Francis retires him – or whether he wants Koch to stay for a while. Koch serves as an ecumenical minister of the Vatican.
Cardinal Kurt Koch at the University of Lucerne last November.
Church law stipulates that bishops and cardinals have to offer the head of the church on their 75th birthday. The Pope can accept it – or not. The latter happened, for example, at the Chur Bishop Vitus Huonder, who died in April 2024. After he submitted his letter of resignation in April 2017, the Pope Huonder's term of office extended two years. It was only in May 2019 that he retired.
In an interview with the German branch of the “Catholic News Agency” (CNA), Koch confirmed at the end of February that he had already sent his letter of withdrawal – he has not yet received an answer. « The Holy Father is currently in the hospital and has completely different concerns to answer than letters, » said Koch. He didn't want to speculate about what his retirement could look like. « Before the Pope decided, I don't worry about the direction in which it should go. »
How the Pope's state of health developed has been unclear in the past few days. Finally, it was officially said that he was stable. There were no new episodes of shortness of breath. However, he is artificially ventilated overnight. The 88-year-old no longer has a fever.
Koch has been living in Rome for almost 15 years. Pope Benedict XVI. appointed the former bishop of the diocese of Basel as President of the Pontifical Council to promote the unity of Christians in early July 2020. The authority has been a dicastera since 2022, Koch is a prefect. The incumbent Pope confirmed Benedict's appointment on February 19, 2014.
Benedikt Kurt Koch raised the cardinal stand on November 20, 2010. The only Swiss cardinal is one of the 136 eligible men (as of March 1) who choose a new head of the church.
Experts trust the pope office to
The US website Collegeofcardinalreport.com, which according to its own information is operated by a team of independent Catholic journalists, is part of the extended circle of 22 papabili.
The website documents where the papal officers are on ten central questions with which the Catholic Church has been struggling for a long time. For example, it is about the blessing of same -sex couples or the treatment of divorced and remarried Catholics in communion. According to the official doctrine, they are not approved for communion.
Koch has deep knowledge of the German -speaking church and is aware of the theological challenges in this region, it says. This is « a crucial property in view of the challenges for the unity of the Church, which emerges from the German -speaking area ».
