Oh, great the joy! May this be the end of the evil that is the catholic cult. The murderous tyranny of the catholic cult was foretold to last a certain number of 'Popes' and the current one is the last of that number.
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 cult."
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 cult who will elect the next pope — to
guarantee his wingnut legacy and ensure an orthodox future for the cult.
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 wingnut 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.
Cracked
has another list of interesting historical figures who did some bizarre
things that led to the world as we know it. For example, we assume that
the food we eat doesn't have a lot of dangerous additives, but it
wasn't so before chemist Harvey Wiley had a crazy idea about testing
food.
Dogs 'understand minds of humans'
Fishermen
claim to have seen oceanic squids jump out of the water for long
distances, but only recently have biologists confirmed these sightings.
Jun Yamamoto of Hokkaido University led a research team that tracked a
group of them jumping great distances at 10.31 meters a second--faster
than Usain Bolt can run:
