Pope No More

Pope Benedict resigned, citing an inability to meet the demands of the office:

Pope Benedict XVI said today that he would resign, surprising most everyone in the world: “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 said. He is eighty-five and has been the Pope for seven and a half years. He made his statement in Latin at a ceremony to canonize three saints—trappings that only underscore what a break with tradition this move is for his Church. We are two years short of the six-hundredth anniversary of the last time that a Pope quit. “The Pope took us by surprise,” the Vatican’s spokesman said. The Prime Minister of Italy was in shock. No one, for once, pretended to fully understand what the man who was born Joseph Ratzinger had in mind. One thing is clear: Benedict has made a conscious choice not to be John Paul II, who turned his own wrenching, illness-filled last days into something like a parable. It could be hard to watch John Paul wave at a crowd with a hand that trembled, and he knew it, and sought consciously to use that time to emphasize his community with anyone who hurt, and with his God. Say what one will about John Paul II, but one couldn’t honestly read his biography without being moved—he worked in a limestone quarry during the German occupation of Poland, studying at a secret seminary—and one can’t quite blame Benedict for not matching that, or for lacking John Paul’s Popemobile charisma or the manner that made his faith seem so manifest. But then it was John Paul II’s conservatism, particularly in the selection of cardinals, that assured Ratzinger’s succession. And which way is really better? Should pain—not only of the ill, but of the poor—simply be borne? One can argue that Benedict is far more honest—and by providing a valuable example of his own about knowing when one is done, perhaps he is doing the Church a six-century-overdue favor. But it is inescapable that Joseph Ratzinger has not lived, and will not die, as Karol Wojtyla did.

While it was noble for Pope John Paul II to set the example of how he thought people should meet their end, I thought he overstepped in insisting that even extraordinary means for continuing life must be taken to extend life.  While Benedict agrees with John Paul's position, he apparently doesn't want to be in that situation while trying to lead over a billion Catholics.  I never saw this bit of news coming.  In the end, I think he made the right move.  Eighty-five is pretty old to be in such an active and demanding position.  It will be very interesting to see who comes next.  Is Dolan a real possibility?  I doubt it, but you never know.