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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Late Pope 'thought of retiring' | Late Pope 'thought of retiring' |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| Pope John Paul II seriously thought about resigning due to ill health in 2000, five years before he died, his private secretary has revealed. | Pope John Paul II seriously thought about resigning due to ill health in 2000, five years before he died, his private secretary has revealed. |
| Stanislaw Dziwisz said the Pope also contemplated changing Church law so that pontiffs would retire at 80. | |
| Cardinal Dziwisz makes the claims in a book about his four decades serving as the Pope's personal aide, due to be published next month. | |
| Pope John Paul II died in early April 2005, at the age of 84. | Pope John Paul II died in early April 2005, at the age of 84. |
| 'Intimate portrait' | |
| There were some suggestions after his death last year that Pope John Paul II had mulled standing down in 2000, believing the time was one of torment for him. | |
| But the new claim comes from one of his closest aides. | |
| His new book also reveals that the Pope weighed altering the laws of the Catholic Church to enable pontiffs to stand down at 80 rather than serving until death. | |
| Cardinal Dziwisz's book is named A Life with Karol - after Pope John Paul II's first name. | |
| The BBC's David Willey in Rome says that the memoirs, written by the man who became the Pope's gatekeeper in his latter years, gives an unusually intimate portrait of the man. | |
| The book, to be published in February, says that both the cardinal and the late Pope were convinced that the former Soviet Union was behind the 1981 attempt on the John Paul II's life. | |
| "All roads lead back to the Soviet KGB," Cardinal Dwziwisz writes. | |
| Although Moscow has denied involvement in the assassination attempt, Cardinal Dwziwisz says the Pope was seen as a threat to Soviet power. |