VATICAN CITY — The decision, delivered in Latin and in unemotional tones by Pope Benedict XVI
to a gathering of cardinals on Monday, came “like a bolt out of the
blue,” one of the participants said, and it soon ricocheted around the
world.
During what was supposed to be a routine meeting to discuss the
canonization of three potential saints, Benedict read a statement that
said, in part, that after examining his 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 leading the world’s one
billion Roman Catholics. He was resigning on Feb. 28, he said, becoming
the first pope to do so in six centuries.
“In today’s world,” Benedict said in his announcement, “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.”
Within minutes, #Pontifexit was trending on Twitter. Later, during an
evening thunderstorm, a lightning bolt struck the dome of St. Peter’s,
though the meaning, if any, was not immediately clear.
In recent months, Benedict, 85, had been showing signs of age. He often
seemed tired and even appeared to doze off during Midnight Mass on
Christmas Eve, after being taken to the altar of Saint Peter’s on a
wheeled platform. But few expected the pope to resign so suddenly, even
though he had said in the past that he would consider the option.
“The pope took us by surprise,” said the Vatican
spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, expounding on one of the most
dramatic moments in centuries of Vatican history. He appeared at a
hastily called news conference on Monday, where he sat alone at a table,
with an unopened bottle of mineral water and a dog-eared copy of a
Canon Law guide before him.
Father Lombardi said the pope did not display strong emotions as he made
his announcement, but spoke with “great dignity, great concentration
and great understanding of the significance of the moment.”
In a statement, President Obama recalled meeting with Benedict in 2009.
“I have appreciated our work together over these last four years,” the
president said. “The church plays a critical role in the United States
and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to
choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.”
Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy called Benedict’s decision “immense and unexpected.”
More than a few observers were struck that such a traditionalist as
Benedict would make such an unconventional exit. “A departure that is
paradoxically modern for a pope who was so conservative,” said Christian
Terras, the founder and executive editor of Golias, a religious review
near Lyon, France, that has been critical of the Catholic Church.
Some said that Benedict’s decision to step down was one of the most
dramatic acts in the history of the papacy. “This decision has been the
only great reform of Benedict, and at the same time it is a
revolutionary step for the Catholic Church,” said Marco Politi, a
Vatican expert and author of a book on Benedict’s papacy. While in past
centuries, popes had stepped down over political struggles, Mr. Politi
said, “this is a clear decision and a free decision made by the pope
that will set an example also for the future, setting a limit for the
pontificate.”
Benedict’s 89-year-old brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, said that the
pope’s weakening health had led him to step down. “His age was taking
its toll,” Father Ratzinger told the German news agency dpa on Monday,
adding that he had been aware of his brother’s plan for several months.
That the resignation was long in the planning was confirmed by Giovanni
Maria Vian, the editor of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano,
who wrote on Monday that the pope’s decision “was taken many months
ago,” after his trip to Mexico and Cuba in March 2012, “and kept with a
reserve that no one could violate.”
Father Lombardi said that the pope would retire first to his summer
residence in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills outside Rome, and later to a
monastery in Vatican City.
Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected on April 19,
2005. At the time, 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.
The church’s 265th pope, Benedict was the first German to hold the title
in half a millennium, and his election was a milestone toward Germany’s
spiritual renewal 60 years after World War II and the Holocaust. At 78, he was also the oldest pope to be elected since 1730.
But Benedict was seen as a weak manager, and his papacy was troubled by
debilitating scandals, most recently when his butler was convicted by a
Vatican court in October of aggravated theft after he admitted stealing
confidential documents, many of which wound up in a tell-all book that
showed behind-the-scenes Vatican intrigue.
Benedict “centered his papacy on giving faith to Christians, focusing on
the essence of what it means to be a Christian, and he managed to do it
in spite of the fact that his communicative capacities weren’t so
brilliant,” Sandro Magister, a Vatican expert, said. “Most common
people, I don’t mean intellectuals, saw him as a disinterested man who
spent all his life for a high cause, which was to revive the faith.”
At first blush, criticism was muted for a pope with a controversial
term, marred by child-abuse scandals and growing discord over
conservative stances on issues like divorce and women in the clergy.
Hans Küng, a theologian and former colleague of Benedict’s who is now
one of his most articulate critics, called his decision to step down
“understandable for many reasons,” according to the dpa news service,
but added that so many conservative cardinals had been named during his
tenure, it would be difficult to find someone “who could lead the church
out of its multifaceted crisis.”
The strongest criticism came from the victims of clerical sexual abuse,
who faulted Benedict for failing to take stronger steps or, in some
eyes, any steps at all.
“This pope had a great opportunity to finally address the decades of
abuse in the church, but at the end of the day he did nothing but
promise everything and in the end he ultimately delivered nothing,” John
Kelly, of the support group Survivors of Child Abuse, told Agence
France-Presse.
Tom Cronin of Irish Survivors of Institutional Abuse International said
that while age and infirmity were given as reasons for the pope’s
resignation, he believed the continuing clerical abuse scandal had
played a part.
“I don’t think he has been able to deal with it, and it was probably the
straw that broke his back,” Mr. Cronin said. “Every day we still get
revelations about this priest or that bishop, and maybe he wasn’t young
enough to confront it and perhaps, too, he hasn’t been getting the right
advice. Whatever the reason, the church hierarchy just hasn’t faced up
to the atrocities and their denials and inaction continue to damage
them.”
In Rome, where souvenir shops often carry more postcards of John Paul
than of Benedict, news of Benedict’s resignation was met with surprise
and some sadness. “Anyone could tell that he was old and sick, and that
such a complicated situation like the one he has to face is a lot, but I
had never heard that a pope could quit,” said Simonetta Piersanti, 52, a
cleaning woman in a residence run by nuns.
She mentioned a common Roman saying, “When a pope dies, they just elect
another,” which captures the lack of excitement with which Italians
greet historic events. “We’ll have to do it even without the death
part,” she added.
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