Pope resigns

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

I would never jump to presume there's scandal behind his decision though. That's pure speculation. It's been made public he's in poor health. Sure, other Popes before him have lived out their days as Pontiff (Pope John Paul II was a prime example)... but he was simply old - not sick. Perhaps Benedict's health issue is something that needs more serious treatment (Cancer for example) that would prevent him from performing his required tasks and public appearances. We don't know. And it IS the 21st Century. Times move forward - even within the Church. I'm not RC (DH was) but I would never jump to presume there was some deep dark dirty secret behind his decision.

[Deleted]

I don't assume, myself. I do wonder about precedence going forward... But not Catholic, so not thinking on it too much

[Deleted]

Feb 11, 2013 23:39:26 GMT -5 ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ said:

I would never jump to presume there's scandal behind his decision though. That's pure speculation. It's been made public he's in poor health. Sure, other Popes before him have lived out their days as Pontiff (Pope John Paul II was a prime example)... but he was simply old - not sick. Perhaps Benedict's health issue is something that needs more serious treatment (Cancer for example) that would prevent him from performing his required tasks and public appearances. We don't know. And it IS the 21st Century. Times move forward - even within the Church. I'm not RC (DH was) but I would never jump to presume there was some deep dark dirty secret behind his decision.

Good for you.

[Jaguar]

One of the contenders to be the next Pope is from Quebec. But he's got an extremely slim chance.

LINK from MSN Canada -->> Could a Canadian Become Pope

[Opti]

Personally I think it is both cool and wise he chose to step down at this point in the world's transition. I also think he did it for him not another weird reason like a scandal, etc. Someone who plans an announcement no one sees coming and it becomes effective very quickly is someone who didn't want to be talked out of doing what he felt was right. I haven't been a huge fan since I am one who believes he's moved the Catholic Church back a few hundred years in the past or so ... but I am impressed by this.

It will be interesting to see who is next. Pope terms of 10 years or less could be the wave of the future and a good thing. Ya never know.

[jackthelad]

I am not a Catholic so it is no skin of my nose that he has thrown in the towel. Don't think he was shoved or pushed though. The Pope has developed a new skill I texting and tweeting, he has just realised there is more to life the blessing people from a balcony and spouting lots of Latin that most people don't understand. He will be conversing now in text speech and tweeting on cybor space to new friends he as recently made. 85 years old, it is time he did things for himself instead of the masses, before he pops is clogs.

[Deleted]

Apparently the next Pope is going to be the last Pope and he will bring the destruction of the Catholic Church and the world.

The Mayans didn't predict the end correctly, but I bet the Catholics will.

[thyme4change]

So, what is the whole butler revealing papers, etc. scandal?  Maybe there is more there than meets the eye?

[thyme4change]

Feb 12, 2013 11:19:15 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Apparently the next Pope is going to be the last Pope and he will bring the destruction of the Catholic Church and the world.

The Mayans didn't predict the end correctly, but I bet the Catholics will.

Sweet.  That will certainly take care of our budget crisis.

[Jaguar]

He has a pacemaker, he had surgery 3 months ago to put new batteries in it. Shooby started a thread about it on EE.

[Artemis Windsong]

I admire him for saying the job is too much for him.  The why is moot.

The drama of the conclave.  I can scarcely wait.  And we think our office politics is rough.  They lead with the cross.

[mrsdutt]

Feb 12, 2013 11:19:15 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Apparently the next Pope is going to be the last Pope and he will bring the destruction of the Catholic Church and the world.

The Mayans didn't predict the end correctly, but I bet the Catholics will.

HUH?  Why? What don't I know

[Deleted]

Feb 12, 2013 18:26:55 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

Feb 12, 2013 11:19:15 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Apparently the next Pope is going to be the last Pope and he will bring the destruction of the Catholic Church and the world.

The Mayans didn't predict the end correctly, but I bet the Catholics will.

HUH?  Why? What don't I know

The last Pope:

www.marketwatch.com/story/prophecy-is-the-next-pope-the-last-pope-2013-02-11

[mollyc]

It's hard to perform the duties of the modern day pope if your doctors won't permit you to travel.  For example, there is a strong expectation that the Pope will make an appearance at various global events like the World Youth Day this summer in Rio de Janeiro.  On the other hand, no one wants to be the country the Pope croaks in except maybe Italy.

A friend was surprised by the announcement.  It was my friend's understanding that just a week or so ago the Vatican had issued a notice that rumours that the Pope would resign for health reasons were unfounded.

[mrsdutt]

Feb 12, 2013 22:03:26 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Feb 12, 2013 18:26:55 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

HUH?  Why? What don't I know

The last Pope:

www.marketwatch.com/story/prophecy-is-the-next-pope-the-last-pope-2013-02-11

The internet is loaded with sheet stirrers.  I found the comments a bit on the wacko side, most not making any sense.  The article held no coherent information either. I guess this could take the place of the Mayan garbage if we wanted it to.

Ldutt is wondering why an economic site would post such trash?  Is it their entertainment section?

[weltschmerz]

Feb 12, 2013 0:06:20 GMT -5 Jaguar said:

One of the contenders to be the next Pope is from Quebec. But he's got an extremely slim chance.

LINK from MSN Canada -->> Could a Canadian Become Pope

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

The hockey stick's a nice added touch. Canadiens fan, I wonder?

[Deleted]

 I figure Ratzinger was voted in last conclave as an interval papacy. A bridge to the next pope.
Eight years ago (April 2005) he was 77 years old... three years shy of retirement.
At that age, wearing those Papal slippers... with hardly any arch support... it must be hard on the feet of a man that has to spend hours performing various rituals and PR functions. I'll bet his feet are killing him.

 In any case, the man is eighty-five years old. He deserves a little time off his feet before his inevitable meeting with the Big Boss ("il Bosso Grande").
 Since the job of Pope is as demanding as it is, the organization requires a Pope physically and mentally capable of fulfilling those demands.
 (Incidentally, the Catholic Encyclopedia lists Benedict as the 266th pope in line of succession from Peter. The oldest Pope of them all was Leo XIII, who was 93 years old when he died in 1903, after sitting on the papal throne for 25 years)

 An interesting fact I recently learned... John Paul II appointed four cardinals "in pectore", or secretly. The names of three of them have been revealed (see  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_in_pectore ) but identity of the fourth remains secret.
 The next Pope could be a surprise.
 [/i]

[weltschmerz]

In any case, the man is eighty-five years old. He deserves a little time off his feet before his inevitable meeting with the Big Boss ("il Bosso Grande").
------------------
I think it's more likely to be Capo di tutti capi ......Boss of all Bosses.

[Deleted]

Feb 11, 2013 23:10:22 GMT -5 ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ said:

Scandal to follow.

That's twice you've said that - I'll ask again .... why do you presume there's some scandal? Is that a pre-judgement on your part based on some past scandals within the RC church regarding certain priests in the past? Why do you assume that there's scandal behind the Pope's resignation? His health is failing - period. Maybe more rapidly than we (the public) know about. He feels he can't fully perform his duties as Pontiff because of that and has decided to resign - it was probably a very difficult decision for him to make and I highly doubt he made it lightly or in haste.

Of all the rumors floating around about just why Pope Benedict XVI is hanging up his camauro, one has taken on a life of its own. According to several well-placed vaticanisti—or Vatican experts—in Rome, Benedict is resigning after being handed a secret red-covered dossier that included details about a network of gay priests who work inside the Vatican, but who play in secular Rome. The priests, it seems, are allegedly being blackmailed by a network of male prostitutes who worked at a sauna in Rome’s Quarto Miglio district, a health spa in the city center, and a private residence once entrusted to a prominent archbishop. The evidence reportedly includes compromising photos and videos of the prelates—sometimes caught on film in drag, and, in some cases, caught “in the act.”

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Pope Benedict XVI receives Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina during a private audience at his private library on February 16 in Vatican City. (Vatican pool photo by Alessia Giuliani)

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Revelations about the alleged network are the basis of a 300-page report supposedly delivered to Benedict on December 17 by Cardinals Julian Herranz, Joseph Tomko, and Salvatore De Giorgi. According to the press reports, it was on that day that Benedict XVI decided once and for all to retire, after toying with the idea for months. He reportedly closed the dossier and locked it away in the pontifical apartment safe to be handed to his successor to deal with. According to reports originally printed by La Repubblica newspaper and the newsweekly Panorama (and followed up across the gamut of the Italian media), the crimes the cardinals uncovered involved breaking the commandments “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” the latter of which has been used in Vatican-speak to also refer to homosexual relations instead of the traditional reference to infidelity.  

The trio of cardinals who authored the report, known in the Italian press as the “007 Priests,” were commissioned by Benedict to dig into the Vatileaks scandal that rocked the Holy See last fall when the pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted of stealing secret papal documents and leaking them to the press. The sleuthing cardinals ran a parallel investigation to the Vatican tribunal’s criminal case against the butler, but theirs was far more covert and focused not on the mechanics of the leaks, but on who within the Roman Curia might be the brains behind them. And, according to the leaked reports, what the “007 Priests” found went far beyond the pope’s private desk. “What’s coming out is very detailed X-ray of the Roman Curia that does not spare even the closest collaborators of the Pope,” wrote respected Vatican expert Ignazio Ingrao in Panorama. “The Pope was no stranger to the intrigues, but he probably did not know that under his pontificate there was such a complex network and such intricate chains of personal interests and unmentionable relationships.”

The existence of a gay-priest network outside the fortified walls of Vatican City is hardly news, and many are wondering if it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of sex scandals. In 2010, investigative journalist Carmello Abbate went undercover with a hidden camera to write a shocking exposé called “Good Nights Out for Gay Priests”.

“What’s coming out is very detailed X-ray of the Roman Curia that does not spare even the closest collaborators of the Pope.”

Abbate caught the priests on hidden camera dirty dancing at private parties and engaging in sex acts with male escorts on church property. He also caught them emerging from dark bedrooms just in time to celebrate mass. In one postcoital scene, a priest parades around seminaked, wearing only his clerical vestments. “This is not about homosexuality,” Abbate told The Daily Beast when he published the exposé. “This is about private vices and public virtues. This is about serious hypocrisy in the Catholic Church.”

Because so much of the secret lives of gay priests is actually not so secret thanks to Abbate’s exposé and subsequent book, Sex and the Vatican, many are wondering what else could be hidden in the alleged red-covered dossier. Vatican elite have also been loosely tied to a number of other secular scandals during Benedict’s tenure, including the ultra-tawdry affair between former Lazio governor Piero Marrazzo and several transvestite prostitutes, including one named “Brenda” who was found burned to death in 2009.  At the time that Marrazzo’s relationships with the transvestites were discovered, his driver reportedly told investigators that several high-ranking priests and even cardinals were customers of Rome’s elite transsexual circuit, though no proof was ever provided and no one has ever been arrested tied to the transsexual prostitution circuit. Nor has anyone mentioned whether reference to these crimes might also be in the dossier. But Marrazzo was whisked off to the Vatican-owned Monte Cassino abbey south of Rome to do his penance, and he even wrote a letter to Vatican Secretary of State Tarciso Bertoneasking for Pope Benedict XVI’s forgiveness.

Whatever secrets the red binders supposedly hold will have to remain just that until the next pope is elected. But Ingrao believes its contents are so important that the dossier will be like the 118th cardinal in the conclave. “Many new skeletons from the closets of the cardinals could come out until the beginning of the conclave,” says Ingrao. “Many voters know or claim to know the secrets of their brothers, but it is already clear that the new pope who leaves the Sistine Chapel will have to be scandal-free in order to proceed with cleaning up [what] Ratzinger has left for his successor.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Of all the rumors floating around about just why Pope Benedict XVI is hanging up his camauro, one has taken on a life of its own.

Did you catch that word in your copy/paste article? RUMORS.

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

Feb 11, 2013 14:25:09 GMT -5 BeenThere...DoneThat... said:

...I'd go with a Spaniard or a South African... must be conservative... someone "less traditional" could be the death knell of the papacy within two generations... but it wouldn't shock me to see Bergoglio or Sandri out of Argentina get the nod...

...hey, I called it... not bad for a Protestant, eh?

[kittensaver]

Mar 13, 2013 17:33:04 GMT -5 BeenThere...DoneThat... said:

Feb 11, 2013 14:25:09 GMT -5 BeenThere...DoneThat... said:

...I'd go with a Spaniard or a South African... must be conservative... someone "less traditional" could be the death knell of the papacy within two generations... but it wouldn't shock me to see Bergoglio or Sandri out of Argentina get the nod...

...hey, I called it... not bad for a Protestant, eh?

Hey - good call, Been There!

[Peace Of Mind]

So let me see if I got this straight.  Women can't use birth control, people can't have sex outside of marriage but Popes, Priests, Cardinals, et al can screw children and men.  To think I was worried about sinning all these years and going to hell!      

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

Mar 13, 2013 19:36:17 GMT -5 Peace Of Mind said:

So let me see if I got this straight.  Women can't use birth control, people can't have sex outside of marriage but Popes, Priests, Cardinals, et al can screw children and men.  To think I was worried about sinning all these years and going to hell!      

...that's not the official position of the Catholic church, however...

[thyme4change]

I don't think Benedict was well liked.  It seems like he was the fall guy to give everyone time to get over losing John Paul, and now we can get a decent pope in there.  The way everyone was talking about the new guy - things like "He will do better" and "It is great to get a change."  Different than what we heard a few years ago when they said "He has big shoes to fill" and "He's got quite a lot of work ahead of him."  I wonder if he quit because he wasn't a rock-star.  He did what he needed to do - fill the hole.  Now everyone is ready to move on.

[Waffle]

I thought it was just me who didn't like Pope Benedict.    I am Catholic and I never felt much of anything positive about Pope Benedict.