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.
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO and ALAN COWELL
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.
