What are your thoughts on Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation?

[marimo]

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Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger or Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he is resigning on February 28, 2013 as he lacks the strength to fulfill his duties. He is the first pontiff in 600 years to resign.
Benedict called his choice "a decision of great importance for the life of the church."

[jeremiahjay]

Conspiracy theorists come on down..hehehe

[marimo]

hahahhahaha

[rickflag]

He's got health problems. Let's respect his decision.

[SioDenz]

Tawgun ba kaha siya gihapon ug the most holy father?

[marimo]

basin pd dle cya capable sa iyang position and he realized na naa pay lain mahimong papa nga mas maayu pa niya

[albert_theboss]

I'm not Catholic, but I respect his decision. Let's all remember that he's also human like us. Og naa pud siya right to do whatever he wants to do. Klaro man gud pud nga masakiton na cya.

[redshields]

okay ra man. ngano dili pwede? bitaw tao ra gud na xa. (i'm not catholic) na realize cguro niya nga dili na kaau xa efficient kay tigulang and masakiton na xa. mas maau pa siguro nga lain na lang mag pope kanang alive and kicking para mas productive and efficient.

[SioDenz]

Ug buot huna hunaon, mas taas pa unta na siya ug Relation or Katungdanan sa Ordinaryo natung amahan kay ang tawag niya is The Most Holy Father baya. So unsay ikasulti nimu if imung Papa mu ingun nga anak mu resign nko pagka amahan kay di na madala sa akong lawas. ok ra ninyu?

[tingkagol]

It seems Popes take the job knowing they're going to die in office. The Vatican has designed and refined the Papacy in such a way that the 'supreme leader' dies in post. One need not look further than the last Pope as an example, John Paul II, who suffered major ill-health (I think he had a severe case of Parkinson's disease) and was virtually non-functional during his last days in office. To say Joseph Ratzinger is oblivious to this is just... foolish. So yes, I think there's more to the 'health reasons' story the Vatican is fronting besides "he isn't John Paul II".

If you look at his history, you will know that he has been implicated way back in 2001 in directly issuing orders to the bishops to keep s3x abuse allegations made against clerics completely secret, and that the church has sole jurisdiction over the investigation regarding such cases.
Pope 'obstructed' *** abuse inquiry | World news | The Observer

So why quit now? I think he saw that he was going to be more and more implicated by information slowly leaking out of the Vatican and thought the best way to deal with the controversy as more and more believers become disillusioned about the church, not to mention its dwindling reputation in the west and other parts of the world, was to quit while he still can. This decision would surely be to the benefit of the church as a whole, since this would make any future revelations less damaging because it would concern an ex-Pope rather than a current Pope.

That's one conspiracy theory.

Whichever the real story is, I don't think the Pope's decision was made without the involvement of the Vatican bureaucracy. It's still politics.