Pope to resign

bb1 wrote:http://news.sky.com/story/1050513/pope-benedict-resigns-vatican-confirms

Pope Benedict Resigns, Vatican Confirms


Pope Benedict XVI is to resign on February 28, the Vatican has announced.

More follows...

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I didn't know popes COULD resign.

The Vatican Radio website has the full text of the pope's statement today. Here it is in full:

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonisations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.

For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013
BENEDICTUS PP XVI

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII in 1415.

Pedro Silva wrote:I´m not speculating, because I don´t know the motives, but, I wonder if the paedophile scandal in church could be one of the reasons for this sudden decision.

As a boy, John Paul II wanted to be an actor. He enrolled at Cracow's Jagiellonian University in 1938, and studied drama there until the Nazis occupied Poland and closed classes in 1939. He later joined Rhapsodic Theatre, an underground theatre group secretly performing nationalistic works, and studied in a clandestine seminary.

At the age of five, Benedict was in a group of children who welcomed the visiting Cardinal Archbishop of Munich with flowers. Struck by the cardinal's distinctive garb, he later announced the very same day that he wanted to be a cardinal.

The Vatican today denied rumors that Pope Benedict XVI has bone cancer and that recent surgery to replace the battery in his pacemaker contributed to his decision to resign from office.

Benedict underwent the heart procedure three months ago, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said today, adding that he believes the pacemaker was fitted on Benedict before he was elected pope nearly eight years ago, while he was a cardinal.

"[It was] not a serious operation, just normal routine. [The surgery] had nothing to do with his decision," Lombardi said.