POPE BENEDICT XVI has announced that he is to resign at the end of the month, saying he no longer has the strength to continue in office. His decision has taken the Catholic Church – which comprises more than 1.2 billion people – by surprise, and indeed shock.
In his resignation statement, which was perhaps prudently guarded, even from his most personal aides, Pope Benedict explained: “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.