Monday, February 11, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI Says He Will Resign

Hey Everyone,

We finally have some good news to chew on.  Vatican is changing its guard as the Pope resigns and steps off his throne at the end of February.  If you recall about 1 year ago, an Italian newspaper reported that the Pope would step down in April 2012.  They were right about the Pope resignation but a little early on the timing. The link to that report is below for your convenience.

Pope To Resign April 15, 2012
http://www.ascensionwithearth.com/2012/03/pope-benedict-to-resign-april-15-2012.html

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L'Osservatore Romano, via Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI delivered a statement at the end of a meeting of cardinals at the Vatican on Monday.
ROME — Citing advanced years and infirmity, Pope Benedict XVI stunned the Roman Catholic world on Monday by saying that he would resign on Feb. 28 after less than eight years in office, the first pope to do so in six centuries.

After examining his conscience “before God,” he said in a statement that reverberated around the world on the Internet and on social media, “I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise” of his position as head of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics. 

A profoundly conservative figure whose papacy was overshadowed by clerical abuse scandals, Benedict, 85, was elected by fellow cardinals in 2005 after the death of John Paul II. 


The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that the pope would continue to carry out his duties until Feb. 28 and that a successor could be elected by Easter, which falls on March 31. But, he added, the timing for an election of a new pope is “not an announcement, it’s a hypothesis.”
While there had been questions about Benedict’s health, the timing of his announcement sent shock waves around the world, even though he had in the past endorsed the notion that an incapacitated pope could resign.

“The pope took us by surprise,” said Father Lombardi, who explained that many cardinals were in Rome on Monday for a ceremony at the Vatican and heard the pope’s address. Italy’s prime minister, Mario Monti, said he was “very shaken by the unexpected news.” 

The announcement plunged the Roman Catholic world into intense speculation about who will succeed him and seemed likely to inspire many contrasting evaluations of a papacy that was seen as both conservative and contentious. 

The pope made his announcement in Latin, but his statement was translated into seven languages: Italian, French, English, German, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. 

“In today’s world,” the pope said, “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 St. 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 recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.” 

“For this reason,” he continued, “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 St. Peter.” 

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected on April 19, 2005. 

At a news conference, the Vatican spokesman said the pope did not express strong emotion as he made his announcement but spoke with “great dignity, great concentration and great understanding of the significance of the moment.” 

Father Lombardi said that the pope would retire first to his summer residence in Castelgandolfo, in the hills outside Rome, and later at a monastery in Vatican City. 

At the time of his election, Benedict was a popular choice within the college of 115 cardinals who chose him as a man who shared — and at times went beyond — the conservative theology of his predecessor and mentor, John Paul II, and seemed ready to take over the job after serving beside him for more than two decades. 

In the final years of John Paul II’s papacy, which were dogged by illness, Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, said that if the pope “sees that he absolutely cannot do it anymore, then certainly he will resign.” 

When he took office, Pope Benedict’s well-known stands included the assertion that Catholicism is “true” and other religions are “deficient”; that the modern, secular world, especially in Europe, is spiritually weak; and that Catholicism is in competition with Islam. He had also strongly opposed homosexuality, the ordination of female priests and stem cell research. 

Born on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in Bavaria, he was the son of a police officer. He was ordained in 1951, at age 24, and began his career as a liberal academic and theological adviser at the Second Vatican Council, supporting many efforts to make the church more open.