Dear friends, I’m happy to be with you, surrounded by the beauty of creation and your well-wishes which do me such good. Thank you for your friendship, and your affection. You know this day is different for me than the preceding ones: I am no longer the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, or I will be until 8 o’clock this evening and then no more.
I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this Earth. But I would still … thank you … I would still with my heart, with my love, with my prayers, with my reflection, and with all my inner strength, like to work for the common good and the good of the church and of humanity. I feel very supported by your sympathy.
Let us go forward with the Lord for the good of the church and the world. Thank you, I now wholeheartedly impart my blessing. Blessed be God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Good night! Thank you all!
Off to the sunset he goes, the world’s only living former Pope.
Here’s the initial CNN report of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation. They have EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on the screen, who was the only person who had an English-language interview with Joseph Ratzinger before he became pope, and Arroyo just sounds stunned.
Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, 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 recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
Benedict’s resignation becomes official February 28—and a successor is likely to be chosen by Spring. He has been in the position for nearly eight years. The Catholic Church has been quick to emphasize that he is not resigning due to any scandal—though he certainly was beset by one, with child abuse controversies casting a pall over his papacy.
People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.Pope Benedict XVI • Denouncing same-sex marriage in his annual Christmas speech today. Benedict has long been viewed, dating back to his ascension to the papacy, as a staunch traditionalist on the Catholic Church’s longtime social positions, and his views on homosexuality have proven no exception: “When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God.” source
A Vatican official told CNN the pope will be composing the tweets for the new account himself. For the first tweet from the account, the pope will also press the button to send the tweet himself, but after that others will send the tweets on his behalf.
In June 2011 the pope sent his first tweet from the Twitter account for the Vatican news site, @news_va_en, to launch the new site www.news.va. He wrote, “Dear friends, I just launched News.va. Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI.”
His first tweet on the new account should be ”Just had an amazing mocha.” He’ll fit right in.
Holy miscalculation: The entire Christian calendar is based on a sixth-century monk’s ‘mistake,’ Pope says
The entire Christian calendar is based on a miscalculation, according to Pope Benedict, who claims in a book published Wednesday that Jesus was born several years earlier than commonly believed.
The “mistake” was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the Pontiff says in the book Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives.
“The calculation of the beginning of our calendar — based on the birth of Jesus — was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years,” the Pope writes in the book, which went on sale around the world with an initial print run of a million copies. “The actual date of Jesus’s birth was several years before.” (AP Photo/L’Osservatore Romano)
Yeah, it’s probably too late to change that.
May the risen Christ grant hope to the Middle East and enable all the ethnic, cultural and religious groups in that region to work together to advance the common good and respect for human rights. Particularly in Syria, may there be an end to bloodshed and an immediate commitment to the path of respect, dialogue and reconciliation, as called for by the international community.Pope Benedict XVI • Speaking during his Easter Sunday mass at the Vatican, specifically bringing up the Syrian conflict. The pope’s words may not be proving effective in Syria, after government officials said they would not lay down their weapons without written guarantees rebel groups would do the same.
First Mexico, then Cuba: Pope Benedict was well-received in Mexico, where almost 350,000 people attended his Sunday Mass. But Cuba’s a bit of a challenge: Focusing less on his mass appeal there, the Pope hopes to use his trip to unite the world’s Catholic countries with those considered to be less Catholic. And Cuba, which until recently was an officially atheist nation, is certainly “less Catholic.” Smaller crowds were expected to attend his services in Cuba — despite the government providing transportation and a paid day off of work. Pope Benedict said last week that he hopes the people of Cuba can move away from Marxism to “find new models, with patience, and in a constructive way.” Hopefully he helps them along while wearing funny hats. source
The Vatican’s getting a social media upgrade: On Wednesday, News.va launches, promising Catholics everywhere that they’ll be able to make jokes about Twitter confessionals with live priests. You know, in the cloud. To emphasize how big a change this is, The Vatican’s current Web presence uses tables for layout — in 2011. But before you get too sarcastic about the idea, it’s worth noting (as our boy Jared Keller does) that the update will do something pretty major in the formerly-insular world of The Vatican — it takes their previously-hidden communication mechanism and turns it inside-out. Now, will the Pope start tweeting about that sandwich he just ate? Probably not. But you might actually hear about what he’s doing a little more often.
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
The clash between faith and modernity is happening again, and it is very strong today. … Spain saw in the 1930s the birth of a strong and aggressive anti-clericalism.Pope Benedict XVI • Seeming to suggest that Spain’s growing secularism will bring rise to the kind of fascism that led to the Spanish Civil War. See, Spain (currently ruled by Socialists) has done a few things that the Catholic Church doesn’t like, including getting rid of religious education in schools and legalizing abortion. The pope suggests a ”meeting between faith and secularism and not a confrontation.” Perhaps we’re cynical, but does anyone see this as the Pope’s attempt to scare people back towards religion in Spain? source (via • follow)
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