Translated material
Dad is tired
Pope Benedict XVI is about to retire, reports the Italian news agency ANSA. According to Vatican Insider, he will leave his post on February 28. He made this statement personally in Latin on February 11, Lenta.ru reports.
He explained his decision by deteriorating health. According to Agence France-Presse , the pontiff said that he does not have enough strength to govern the church due to his advanced age. The pope is 85 years old and one of the oldest pontiffs in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Vatican has released the Pope's official address to his flock marking his departure.
“Dear brothers, after a careful study of my condition, I came to the realization that my strength, due to my advanced age, is no longer enough for worthy service in this post. But I will continue to serve the Holy Church through prayers, to which I will devote the rest of my days,” says Benedict XVI’s letter, the text of which is quoted by the Guardian .
Benedict XVI's spokesman Federico Lombardi confirmed the Pope's words. Benedict XVI's successor will likely be known by the end of March, he said. The conclave at which the new pontiff will be chosen will be organized 15-20 days after the abdication of Benedict XVI.
The last time in history when a Pope abdicated the throne was in 1415. Then Gregory XII abdicated due to a schism in the Catholic Church.
The Code of Canon Law provides for the right of the pope to abdicate the throne, and this abdication does not require anyone's approval. The only condition for the validity of the abdication is the free will of the pope.
NEW: The abdication of Benedict XVI is connected with the crisis of the church system, writes Massimo Franco in the newspaper Corriere della Sera, Interfax-religion reports.
"The choice of the pope is the result of much thought and long weariness. To call his gesture instinctive would be a mistake in relation to a person who will go down in history more for his resignation than for his attempts to reform Catholicism."
As the author writes, “we are witnessing the last, irreversible crisis of the system of government and the form of papal power, as well as the uprising of the Holy Father in the face of the drift of the Church-state, which in a few years has turned in the eyes of the public from the “mistress of life” into a “sinner”, from a moral reference point into a kind of “accused” by the whole world.”
“If it were not for this protracted trauma that persists to this day, it would be difficult to understand the reasons for the abdication of Benedict XVI. A long series of conflicts, maneuvers, betrayals under the shadow of St. Peter’s dome became the reason for the adoption of such a decision, for which the definition “revolutionary” sounds inadequate: it too small, too secular. What happened yesterday leaves a feeling of deafening emptiness," says Franco.
According to him, a legacy of "hostility, self-promotion, struggle between currents, economic wars and legal disputes - all this fell heavily on the weakened shoulders of Benedict XVI."
“And, as pope, Benedict XVI broke a centuries-old taboo - he made it clear to the Vatican nomenklatura that no one is irreplaceable: even in relation to those who sit on the throne. He opened the door for a potential wave of resignations. He unwittingly confirmed the legitimacy of the statements of representatives of many episcopates who They saw in papal Rome a nest of conflicts and maneuvers, cardinals thinking only about continuity,” concludes Franco.