VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI said Monday he lacks the
strength to fulfill his duties and on Feb. 28 will become the first
pontiff in 600 years to resign. The announcement sets the stage for a
conclave in March to elect a new leader for world's 1 billion Catholics.
The 85-year-old pope announced the bombshell in
Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals, surprising even his closest
collaborators, even though Benedict had made clear in the past he would
step down if he became too old or infirm to do the job.
Benedict called his choice "a decision of great importance for the life of the church."
Indeed, the move allows the Vatican to hold a
conclave before Easter to elect a new pope, since the traditional
mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn't have to be
observed.
It will also allow Benedict to hold great sway over
the choice of his successor. He has already hand-picked the bulk of the
College of Cardinals - the princes of the church who will elect the
next pope - to guarantee his conservative legacy and ensure an orthodox
future for the church.
There are several papal contenders in the wings,
but no obvious front-runner - the same situation when Benedict was
elected pontiff in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II.
The Vatican stressed that no specific medical
condition prompted Benedict's decision, but in recent years, the pope
has slowed down significantly, cutting back his foreign travel and
limiting his audiences. He now goes to and from the altar in St. Peter's
Basilica on a moving platform, to spare him the long walk down the
aisle. Occasionally he uses a cane.
His 89-year-old brother, Georg Ratzinger, said doctors had recently advised the pope not to take any more trans-Atlantic trips.
"His age is weighing on him," Ratzinger told the dpa news agency. "At this age my brother wants more rest."
Benedict emphasized that carrying out the duties of
being pope - the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics
worldwide - requires "both strength of mind and body."
"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," he told the cardinals.
"In order to govern the bark of St. Peter and
proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary -
strengths which in the last few months, have deteriorated in me to the
extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill
the ministry entrusted to me," he said.
Popes are allowed to resign; church law specifies
only that the resignation be "freely made and properly manifested." But
only a handful have done it.
The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who
stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among
competing papal claimants. The most famous resignation was Pope
Celestine V in 1294; Dante placed him in hell for it.
When Benedict was elected at age 78, he was the
oldest pope chosen in nearly 300 years. At the time, he has already been
planning to retire as the Vatican's chief orthodoxy watchdog to spend
his final years writing in the "peace and quiet" of his native Bavaria.
On Monday, Benedict said he would serve the church
for the remainder of his days "through a life dedicated to prayer." The
Vatican said immediately after his resignation, Benedict would go to
Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer retreat south of Rome, and then would
live in a cloistered monastery.
Contenders to be his successor include Cardinal
Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the
archbishop of Vienna, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of
the Vatican's office for bishops.
Longshots include Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New
York. Although Dolan is popular and backs the pope's conservative line,
the general thinking is that the Catholic Church doesn't need a pope
from a "superpower."
Given half of the world's Catholics live in the
global south, there will once again be arguments for a pope to come from
the developing world.
Cardinal Antonio Tagle, the archbishop of Manila,
has impressed many Vatican watchers, but at 56 and having only been
named a cardinal last year, he is considered too young.
Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana is one
of the highest-ranking African cardinals at the Vatican, currently
heading the Vatican's office for justice and peace, but he's something
of a wild card.
All cardinals under age 80 are allowed to vote in
the conclave, the secret meeting held in the Sistine Chapel where
cardinals cast ballots to elect a new pope. As per tradition, the
ballots are burned after each voting round; black smoke that snakes out
of the chimney means no pope has been chosen, while white smoke means a
pope has been elected.
The pontiff had been due to attend World Youth Day
in July in Rio de Janeiro; by then his successor will have been named
and will presumably make the trip.
Benedict himself raised the possibility of
resigning if he were simply too old or sick to continue on, when he was
interviewed in 2010 for the book "Light of the World."
"If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer
physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the
duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances,
also an obligation to resign," Benedict said.
The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had an
intimate view as Pope John Paul II, with whom he had worked closely for
nearly a quarter-century, suffered through the debilitating end of his
papacy.
The announcement took the Vatican - and the rest of the world - by surprise.
Several cardinals on Monday didn't even understand
what Benedict had said during the consistory, said the Rev. Federico
Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman said. Others who did were stunned.
"All the cardinals remained shocked and were
looking at each other," said Monsignor Oscar Sanchez of Mexico who was
in the room when Benedict made his announcement.
Benedict was born April 16, 1927 in Marktl Am Inn,
in Bavaria, but his father, a policeman, moved frequently and the family
left when he was 2.
In his memoirs, Benedict dealt what could have been
a source of controversy had it been kept secret - that he was enlisted
in the Nazi youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941, when
membership was compulsory. He said he was soon let out because of his
studies for the priesthood. Two years later he was drafted into a Nazi
anti-aircraft unit as a helper. He deserted the German army in April
1945, the waning days of the war.
He called it prophetic that a German followed a Polish pope - with both men coming from such different sides of World War II.
Benedict was ordained, along with his brother, in
1951. After spending several years teaching theology in Germany, he was
appointed bishop of Munich in 1977 and elevated to cardinal three months
later by Pope Paul VI.
John Paul named him leader of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981 and he took up his post a year later.
Following John Paul's death in 2005, he was elected pope April 19 in one
of the fastest conclaves in history, just about 24 hours after the
voting began.
