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.