Cardinal Peter Turkson, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to become the first African pope in over 1,500 years, has abruptly resigned from a crucial Vatican department, according to sources acquainted with the situation.
Turkson, 73, is the only African to lead a Vatican department and has been a crucial counsel to Pope Francis on matters such as climate change and social justice.
The pope has yet to decide whether or not to accept the resignation, according to Vatican insiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Turkson is the director of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, a huge Vatican institution. It was founded in 2016 after four offices dealing with problems like peace, justice, migration, and charities merged.
Turkson who is two years shy of the statutory retirement age of 75 for bishops is believed to be “fed up” with internal squabbles, according to one source.
Turkson had told colleagues that he would speak more after the pope made his choice, according to another source.
Following the retirement of Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea earlier this year, his resignation would leave the Vatican with no African in charge of a significant department.
At the request of the Pope, Turkson’s department was subjected to an external examination led by Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago early this year.
His resignation offer comes after two high-level departures from the department this summer, one due to retirement and the other abrupt and unexplained.
Early in its history, the Catholic Church had several popes of North African descent, the last of whom reigned in the fifth century.
Turkson would be eligible to enter a conclave of cardinals to pick the next pope if Francis dies or retires until he becomes 80, according to Church norms, even if he leaves his Vatican office.
The conservative Italian blog messainlatino.it was the first to report Turkson’s decision to retire.
