Pope Benedict XVI on Monday announced he would resign, citing old age, in a stunning announcement that marked a first in the modern history of the Catholic Church.
The German-born Pope said he would quit February 28, making him the first pontiff to resign in centuries. “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,” the 85-year-old Pope said in a Latin speech at a meeting of cardinals.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, saying “the Pope caught us a bit by surprise”, said a conclave of cardinals was likely in March within 15 or 20 days of the resignation and a new Pope elected before Easter Sunday on March 31.
Benedict, an academic theologian who has written many books including a trilogy on the life of Jesus Christ that he completed last Christmas, will retire to a monastery within the Vatican walls.
“In order to govern the ship 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,” the Pope said.
Tributes poured in from around the world including his native Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had the “greatest respect” for his decision.
Benedict, formerly Joseph Ratzinger, was the Church’s doctrinal enforcer for years, and was elected in 2005 at a time when the Vatican was rocked by multiple scandals over child abuse committed by priests.
The only other Pope to resign because he felt unable to fulfil his duties was Celestine V in 1294, a hermit who quit after just a few months saying he yearned for a simpler life. In 1415, Gregory XII resigned in a bid to end the “Western Schism”, when two rivals declared themselves Pope in Pisa and Avignon and threatened to tear apart Roman Catholicism.