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11 February 2013updated 05 Oct 2023 8:39am

Why is the Pope resigning?

Benedict XVI to step down on 28 February, citing "health reasons".

By Alex Hern

The Italian state news agency, ANSA, is reporting that Pope Benedict XVI is to resign on 28 February for health reasons due to his “advanced age”. He will be the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years, since Gregory XII gave up the throne in 1415 to solve the fact that there were three claimants to the Papacy.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the college of cardinals, called the decision – which was made personally in a speech in Latin by the Pope at a meeting called a consistory – “a bolt from the blue”. Benedict XVI is 85 years old, and has been Pope since April 2005. 

Paddy Power is offering odds on where the next pope will come from, with Italy the favourite at 5/4, but both Africa and Canada (yes, a continent being compared to a nation) looking likely at 2/1 and 5/2 respectively. Ladbrokes is offering odds on named successors: 5/2 for Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, 3/1 for Cardinal Marc Ouellet, 4/1 for Cardinal Francis Arinze, and 6/1 for Cardinal Angelo Scola.

The full text of the pope’s resignation reads as follows:

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonisations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. 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.

I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with 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 Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.

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For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

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