VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would resign Feb. 28 — the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March.
The 85-year-old pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals on Monday morning.
He emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope — the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide — requires "both strength of mind and body."
"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," he told the cardinals. "I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only by 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 St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary — strengths 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."
The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.
Benedict called his choice "a decision of great importance for the life of the church."
The move sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn't have to be observed.
There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner — the same situation when Benedict was elected pontiff in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II.
At the time, many of West Michigan's 163,000 parishioners praised the election of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
"It's wonderful. Catholics need this, " Sherry Kozminski of Kentwood said in April 2005, a cross hanging from her neck. Ratzinger's election was announced while she was praying the rosary at the Catholic Information Center in downtown Grand Rapids.
"If everyone's praying for this pope, you're going to have the unity, love and peace of Jesus, " she said.
"Outstanding, " said Maria Milstead, who drove from Holland to The Angelus, a Catholic store in Grand Rapids, in April 2005. "He's conservative, orthodox and was very close to Pope John Paul. It took just two days — wonderful."
Elected at age 78, it was unlikely Benedict would come anywhere near his predecessor Pope John Paul's 26-year pontificate.
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