VATICAN CITY, Feb 11, (Agencies): Declar-ing that he lacks the strength to do his job, Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday he will resign Feb. 28 — becoming the first pontiff to step down in 600 years. His decision sets the stage for a mid-March conclave to elect a new leader for a Catholic Church in deep turmoil.

The 85-year-old pope dropped the bombshell in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals, surprising even his closest collaborators even though he had made clear previously that he would step down if he became too old or infirm to carry on.

Benedict called his choice “a decision of great importance for the life of the church.”

Conclave
Indeed, the move allows the Vatican to hold a conclave before Easter to elect a new pope, since the traditional nine days of mourning that would follow the death of a pope doesn’t have to be observed.
It will also allow Benedict to hold great sway over the choice of his successor, though he will not vote. He has already hand-picked the bulk of the College of Cardinals — the princes of the church who will elect the next pope — to guarantee his conservative legacy and ensure an orthodox future for the church.
“Without doubt this is a historic moment,” said Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a protege and former theology student of Benedict’s who himself is considered a papal contender. “Right now, 1.2 billion Catholics the world over are holding their breath.”

Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, called the decision a “liberating act for the future,” saying popes from now on will no longer feel compelled to stay on until their death.

“One could say that in a certain manner, Pope Benedict XVI broke a taboo,” he told reporters in Paris.
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.

The Vatican stressed that no specific medical condition prompted Benedict’s decision, that he remained fully lucid and took his decision independently.

“Any interference or intervention is alien to his style,” Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

It has been obvious to all that the pope has slowed down significantly in recent years, cutting back his foreign travel and limiting his audiences. He now goes to and from the altar in St. Peter’s Basilica on a moving platform to spare him the long walk down the aisle. Occasionally he uses a cane.

His 89-year-old brother, Georg Ratzinger, said doctors had recently advised the pope not to take any more trans-Atlantic trips.

“His age is weighing on him,” Ratzinger told the dpa news agency. “At this age, my brother wants more rest.”

Benedict emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope 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 the demands of being the pope, he told the cardinals.

“In order to govern the bark (ship) of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary — strengths which in the last few months, have deteriorated in me,” he said.

Popes are allowed to resign but church law says the decision must be “freely made and properly manifested.” Still, only a handful have done it.

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism, a dispute among competing papal claimants. The most famous resignation was Pope Celestine V in 1294; Dante placed him in hell for it.

There are good reasons why others haven’t followed suit, primarily because of the fear of a schism with two living popes. Lombardi sought to rule out such a scenario, saying church law makes clear that a resigning pope no longer has the right to govern the church.

“Therefore there is no risk of a conflict,” he told reporters.

When Benedict was elected in 2005 at age 78, he was the oldest pope chosen in nearly 300 years. At the time, he had already been planning to retire as the Vatican’s chief orthodoxy watchdog to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria.

On Monday, Benedict said he would serve the church for the remainder of his days “through a life dedicated to prayer.” The Vatican said immediately after his resignation, which takes effect at 8 p.m. Feb. 28, Benedict would go to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer retreat south of Rome, and then would live in a cloistered monastery.

During his tenure, Benedict charted a very conservative course for the church, trying to reawaken Christianity in Europe where it had fallen by the wayside and return the church to its traditional roots, which he felt had been betrayed by an incorrect interpretation of the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

His efforts though, were overshadowed by a worldwide clerical sex abuse scandal, communication gaffes that outraged Jews and Muslims alike and, more recently, a scandal over leaked documents by his own butler. Many of his stated priorities as pope also fell short: he failed to establish relations with China, heal the schism and reunite with the Orthodox Church, or reconcile with a group of breakaway, traditionalist Catholics.

Still, most Vatican watchers saw his decision as the best thing to do for the church given his diminished capacities.

“It is an act ultimately of responsibility and love for the church,” said the Rev. John Wauck, an Opus Dei priest who teaches at the Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome.

Caroline Neumayer, a resident of the tiny German town of Marktl am Inn, birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI, still fondly remembers the moment she met her hometown’s most famous son.

“When he was in Marktl in 2006, he got out of his popemobile and came up to me and my friends. He took us by the hand. It was a beautiful and meaningful moment,” said the 18-year-old.

She told AFP she thought the sudden announcement Monday that Benedict will resign later this month was a “carnival joke” as much of Germany swings into festive carnival mood in the run-up to the Christian period of Lent.

“I find it sad because he wasn’t pope for very long,” she said.

With tears rolling down her face, an older resident of the Bavarian town, Karin Frauendorfer, 60, said the resignation was “a bad thing in itself, but justified given his poor state of health”.

“I think that what he did deserves a lot of respect,” she added, noting that a potential successor might find the burden of the papacy easier to bear with Benedict still there to help him.

“I have of course been to see the Urbi et Orbi,” she sobbed, referring to the papal address given in the Vatican.

The market town of Marktl am Inn, in the predominantly Catholic southern German region of Bavaria, has done well out of its most well-known former resident, born there in 1927.

In the first two years after Benedict became pope in 2005, some 200,000 people per year flocked to his birthplace, said mayor Hubert Gschwendtner, 64.

The annual procession of visitors has since dropped to around 100,000 but Gschwendtner said he was not worried about the consequences of Benedict’s resignation on his town.

“I don’t think we won’t have visitors any more,” he said.

He too expressed “understanding” for the pope’s decision although he said he was “surprised” as the last time he saw the pontiff, in June, he had given the impression of a very fit man.

“At the age of nearly 86, to be fit every day is an enormous burden,” he said.

The local priest, Josef Kaiser, 62, said Benedict’s elevation to the papacy had swollen his flock but “these were just visitors”.

“For our own church community, the choice of pope did not change anything. People did not become more believing. Like everywhere else, we had a fall in numbers after the abuse scandal” that hit the Catholic Church in Germany and elsewhere.

“We don’t know what will happen now.”

The priest said the town had been criticised for attempting to cash in on the image of the pope, selling pope beer and bread but he defended the actions of the community.