Pope Benedict XVI Resigns

85-year-old Pope Benedict XVI announces resignation because of age, health
Updated: 12 Feb 2013
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Pope Benedict XVI blessing faithful at the end of the Epiphany mass in St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City last month. AFP PHOTO/ VINCENZO PINTO


Source: News Limited

POPE Benedict XVI says he will resign on February 28 because his age prevents him from carrying out his duties, an unprecedented move in the modern history of the Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict XVI is the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years and the decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new Pope before the end of March.

The 85-year-old and 265th Pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals.

"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," Pope Benedict XVI told the meeting.

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"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 fulfill the ministry entrusted to me," he said.

"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," he said.

A group of cardinals will soon go into lockdown in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope.

Pope Benedict XVI will leave behind a Catholic Church grappling with crises from child abuse scandals involving priests to confronting radical Islam as well as struggling to find its place in an increasingly secular Western world.

He was elected pope on April 19, 2005 at a time when anger at clerical abuse was at its height in parts of Europe and North America, shaking the faith of many ordinary Catholics.

He was also criticised for failing to realise the scale of the problem during his previous 24-year career as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the main doctrinal body of the Church.

Among his achievements, Pope Benedict XVI gave the world its first Australian Catholic saint, Mary MacKillop, ending an 85-year campaign by Australian Catholics to have her canonised.

Widely seen as an ultra-conservative, the first German pope in history has proved in many ways more flexible and modern than his Polish predecessor.

He was the first pope to speak about the possibility of using a condom, although only in the very specific case of a sex worker with AIDS.

In a book of interviews that came out in 2010 entitled Light of the World, he said this could be a first step towards a "more humane sexuality".

SOURCE: news.com.au