To wonder if there's more to the Popes resignation than meets the eye?

[KenAdams]

The lack of notice just seems somewhat odd.

Link?

Quite possibly, but to what I don't know. It's unprecedented that's for sure. If he's decided that his faith isn't strong enough then I guess he's to be admired.

Sorry here

Due to ill health apparently. But Pope JP II went on for ever and he was never in good health.

I smell a big Hitler Youth rat tbh.

YANBU but I don't think we will ever find out the truth. The official reason is "health problems" but that doesn't seem very true when it's such a rare event. Popes are expected to be doddery and frail.

I don't know there could be more to it in a suspicious sort of way, then again he could be ill, or it could genuinely be that he just feels too old to do a good job and that is fair enough I think.

Yanbu. But I'm a suspicious cow at the best of times.

He says he is too mentally and physically frail, basically.

'Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonisations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. 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.

I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today?s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.'

...more if you read the full text. www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/11/pope-resigns-live-reaction

Dementia or similar would certainly preclude exercise of public duties in a way that other diseases wouldn't.

I blame the Mafia.

Unfortunately the Catholic Church is just another major corporation, I should think politics rather than old age are to blame (not dissing the Catholic 'faith' just the organisation).

Thanks.

Maybe he is personally disgusted at the acts of the RC church in many countries over the years and feels he can no longer sit at the head of it.

Well thats what I hope anyway. But I guess we will never know.

I agree I think it's Alzheimer's or similar.

Pope JP II was always rumoured to have Parkinson's so was probably just a figurehead his last years so if Benedict has the guts to say I'm too old then good for him. It's daft that most popes never get there until they're too old to do any good anyway.

Someone told me when the current pope was appointed that they had a suspicion that he was only ever meant to be temporary (that's why they picked someone already fairly old and frail) because the person that the church really wanted in place wasn't ready yet for whatever reason to take on the role.

Father Jack for pope!

Why does there have to be anything more to it?

As a Cardinal, he must have seen how frail the last Pope was for quite a few years before the end, and realised quite sensibly that it is not a good thing for the Church.

We went to Rome in 1999 and I remember the Pope saying prayers outside St Peters, OK he wasn't speaking in English but his voice was so slurred I doubt he could have been understood in any language. They had altered the steps of St Peters so a car could drive right up to his chair, as he could hardly walk at all. And he was Pope for another 6 years!! Poor old fellow, it seems cruel.

And perhaps Pope Benedict feels that the last Pope ended up as just a figurehead, not really in control as he was too ill.

I think good for him. He deserves some rest at 85.

FeckOff that sounds familiar actually.

My first thought was dementia too

I think he wants to spend more time with his family!

Hahaha

He talked about resigning back in 2010 so not totally of the blue.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2075667/Health-fears-ailing-Pope-heads-hectic-festive-season.html#axzz2KadCDQqv

Yet Benedict himself raised the possibility of resigning if he were simply too old or sick to continue on, when he was interviewed for the book 'Light of the World,' which was released in November 2010.
'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. After John Paul's death at age 84, it was revealed that he had written a letter of resignation to be invoked if he became terminally ill or incapable of continuing on.
And it should be recalled that at the time Benedict was elected pope at age 78 - already the oldest pope elected in nearly 300 years - he had 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.'

Lack of notice?

To whom?

The general public??!!

Yeah dementia of some sort.

Because he's such a sensitive flower who hasn't dealt with criticism in the past?

Dementia
Hitler Youth
child abuse scandal

Can't help but think it's one of the above. With the third point either involved himself or deeply implicated in a cover-up

Popes never resign

Perhaps he wants to spend more time with his children?

A note to the cardinals, picking a inflexible doctrine obsessed ex Nazi who covered up for kiddy fiddlers ain't great PR. Please do better next time.