The immediate news of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has created sudden shock-waves in the Christian world and the Roman Catholic Church. It happened on Monday, February 11, 2013 when he announced that he will be resigning because he thinks his physical and mental capabilities have not remained enough to carry on his work; therefore he has to step down. It had been the first Pope resigning in almost 700 years, so this issue created great repercussions among the community. The last Christian pope to resign before this was Pope Gregory XII in 1415 who stepped down because of the “Great Western Schism” at that time.
Benedict was elected as a Pope in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II, and during his eight years reign he preached a conservative form of faith in the Christian world. Keeping in view his standing as a fundamentalist, he declared that he will resign on the 28th of February. He said that he has to recognize his incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to him. Reaching the age of 86, he further claimed that his strengths because of being old were no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.
Pope Benedict acted conservatively on social and religious issues, struggling what he viewed as the growing secularization of society. He also showed extreme opposition to the acceptance of homosexual acts and the embryonic system cell research and also constrained women to be ordained as priests. Many people argued that his efforts had remained unsuccessful to stop child abuse in the Churches, yet he apologized for Church’s failure to stop the Child sexual exploitation by priests. In addition to the issue of child abuse, he also faced Muslim anger during his papacy when he compared Islam to violence.
In history, it has never happened that a Pope resigns due to incapable physical condition because it would result in creating a division among the two Popes alive at the same time: the “Ex-Pope” who has resigned and the one who is elected newly. There were a lot of claims coming by the people who said that the actual reason for such sudden announcement was not the issue of health. Pope Benedict had been forced by some external forces to resign. The Pope repeatedly said that he had been considering this decision since the last six months because of the health deterioration he had been facing recently. He had started using a cane and a wheeled platform to reach the long passageway in St Peter’s Square. Although he gave no hint that he had been planning to resign, yet he said that the decision was completely personal and had not been influenced by any external pressures.
However, it has been announced that the election for the next Pope will take place soon after the resignation during March and the next Pope will be ready to take over by Easter a week later.
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