Pope Benedict XVI embarked yesterday on a busy few days ahead of a packed 2012 looking visibly weary though his aides insist he is not ill and ascribe the pontiff’s tiredness to his advanced years.

The 84-year-old German pope has appeared thin and drawn at recent public appearances and bishops who met him have commented on his weary appearance

The 84-year-old German pope has appeared thin and drawn at recent public appearances and bishops who met him have commented on his weary appearance.

He has to be helped up and down stairs due to mild arthritis.

“It’s just his age,” Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi told AFP.

“The Pope has no particular illness,” he said, adding: “For an old man, he’s in excellent shape.”

“Benedict XVI can cope with numerous engagements as he showed in September in Germany when his programme was exhausting,” Fr Lombardi said.

“He has taken on engagements for next year including an intercontinental trip” to Cuba and Mexico, he added.

Today the Pope will deliver his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing on St Peter’s Square and tomorrow the Angelus prayer.

On New Year’s Eve, he will president over vespers in St Peter’s again and then celebrate Mass on January 1 on World Peace Day.

“He always shows a great lucidity and presence,” Fr Lombardi said.

Pope Benedict last Sunday showed some of that lucidity, speaking at length without notes in Rome’s Rebibbia prison with 300 detainees.

In a book of interviews last year, the Pope did not exclude the possibility of resigning if his physical or intellectual strength is diminished.

But he has underlined he is not the type to resign in the face of difficulty, like the mountain of child abuse scandals rocking the Church.

Giovanni Maria Vian, the editor of the official Vatican daily, Osservatore Romano, said the Pope is very worried about what he views as a world crisis of faith.