Pope Francis has shrugged off recent reports of in-fighting in the Vatican and other stresses of his job, joking: “I am not on tranquilisers.”
“There is corruption in the Vatican. But I am at peace,” the pontiff said in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera, published on Thursday.
In unusually revealing comments, the erstwhile Jorge Bergoglio reveals how feelings of anxiety he sometimes experienced while he was bishop of Buenos Aires disappeared after his elevation to the papacy.
And he insists that he is losing no sleep over the manoeuvring of conservatives opposed to his reforms of church teaching and governance.
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The 80-year-old says his secret for dealing with stress is to write down all his problems in letters to Saint Joseph.
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He then places the missives under a statue of the man described in the Bible as the carpenter father of Jesus.
“And now he is sleeping on a mattress of letters! That’s why I sleep well: it is the grace of God. I always sleep six hours. And I pray,” Francis said.
