What if a pope enters into a coma?

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Let’s imagine a pope enters a 20 years coma. What will happen? The Church would elect a new one? And let’s say it does, what happen if the sick pope wakes up? Who would be the pope? And let’s even imagine if both popes want to enforce their claims. How would all this be solved?
 
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I know it is a very improbable situation, but let’s share our suppositions.
 
Have you seen the trailer for The New Pope? 😂
I don’t know if that’s what would actually happen, but it’s an interesting question.
 
Yes! My question comes from it. It is a very sad, albeit intriguing, scenario.
 
Let’s imagine a pope enters a 20 years coma. What will happen? The Church would elect a new one? And let’s say it does, what happen if the sick pope wakes up? Who would be the pope? And let’s even imagine if both popes want to enforce their claims. How would all this be solved?
I read this on a website about Papal transition.

“While the pope is in a coma, Vatican officials could continue to operate under their normal authority but any decision requiring the pope’s approval (the appointment of bishops, the approval of major documents, etc.) would simply have to wait.”
 
After a time I imagine they would retire the comatose pope and elect a new pope.

If he later comes out of his coma, he would be a retired (emeritus) pope.
 
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I am not aware of any mechanism to retire or otherwise remove a living Pope other than the Pope himself resigning. If there is one, I would be very interested to hear about it.
 
I do not like “what-if” scenarios.
Let us focus on what is. Thanks be to God!
 
Great thread on this very subject from 12 years ago…
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Pope in a coma. Who's in charge? Traditional Catholicism
The former PM of Israel, Ariel Sharon, has now been in a coma for 22 months. If a Pope was to suffer severe incapacitation, for example by a cerebrovascular incident, and go into a coma for months or even years, who would lead the Church? How would important matters which only the Pope can pronounce on, or approve, be dealt with?
 
One interesting possibility mentioned in that thread is that the pope may have left a living will. In it, he could express his intent to renounce under specific conditions (incapacity, neurodegenerative disease, long coma, …).
 
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If you do not like it, don’t comment, but I don’t think the entire human population must stop because of it. Imagine if in every thread in this forum, everybody that didn’t like the subject comment about it.
 
I think Popes have done that before, something to the effect of, “If I am captured, I hereby renounce my Office”.
 
Again, it is not because you don’t like it, everybody must conform. I don’t like rugby, but I am not advocating to br banned from the world just to please me.
 
After a time I imagine they would retire the comatose pope and elect a new pope.

If he later comes out of his coma, he would be a retired (emeritus) pope.
There are only two ways to remove a Pope and these are death or resignation. The Pope cannot be removed by any other way.
 
Let’s imagine a pope enters a 20 years coma. What will happen? The Church would elect a new one? And let’s say it does, what happen if the sick pope wakes up? Who would be the pope? And let’s even imagine if both popes want to enforce their claims. How would all this be solved?
This is an excellent reason why there needs to be a provision in canon law for precisely this sort of thing — granting plenipotentiary authority to someone else (a member of the College of Cardinals, the Curia, or perhaps even an ad hoc committee, kind of like a papal “regency” of sorts), or allowing this pope’s papacy to lapse after a given period of time, so that a new pope could be elected.
 
You’re right.

I came across an interesting article that suggested, after reminding the reader that “the gates of hell (Hades, the netherworld) shall not prevail,” that the pope being in a coma could be God’s will for the Church, that we should leave the matter in God’s hands, that some good would surely come as a result of it, and that in such an event we should pray for the pope.

 
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You don’t only need the coma scenario … What if a bunch of ennemies of the Church kidnaped the Pope and locked him away somewhere with no contact with the outside world. How long would the Church wait? What if we don’t even know if he is still alive?
 
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