Pope retires

'Cause a thread about this seems inevitable.

Yeah, Benedict XVI is packing it in, the first Pope in six hundred years to do so. Speculation abounds as to why he's bothered when dying in office came so easily to the last hundred popes or so.

Apparently according to ancient bullshit prophecy the next Pope is meant to be called Peter of Rome and his papacy is meant to result in the destruction of Rome in some way, and probably also the End of the World. Expect this to be this year's focus for apocalyptic nutbars, now the Mayans are unfashionable again.

Entirely unrelatedly, the favourite for next Pope is in fact called Peter - Cardinal Peter Turkson of, uh, Ghana.



Ghana is in some way Rome? Like it matters, he could have been called Bugnuts McWeeble and it still would have been claimed as the fulfilment of prophecy. Anyway, him being a black guy will only fuel the apocalyptic nutbars I am sure, so for maximum comedy value let's all hope he gets it.

A black,relatively young pope that has the exact name required to fulfill an apocalyptic prophesy?

FUCK YES. I love the world sometimes.

My wife's reaction (she's a lapsed catholic) was "that's not how poping works!"

Pretty much what I said to my wife this morning. You don't get to quit.

Not for physical reasons, anyway. If you're mind is going, that might require a different approach.

I'm rooting for Cardinal Marx of Munich!

But of course the real reason is here:

If I were an insecure and vulnerable 12 year old boy, I'd hit it.

They should harken back to the good ol' days and the college of cardinals should murder him.

My favorite reality show is now set to begin again.

Let the conclave begin!

I guess that would make him an...

Ex-Benedict

(Yeaaaahhhhh)

My reactions in order:
1. lolwut
2. haha the reactionaries will be pissed off and embarrassed
3. so the guy spends his life hypocritically defending shitty traditions but hypocritically disregards them when it's personally convenient for him. Well ok, there is some consistency in there, but still.
4. what's the real reason? It has to be something serious. Maybe a scandal is brewing...
5. maybe he won't resign after all, they still have a couple of weeks to poison him or something?

Christ. How bad do you have to be at your job to get fired by Jesus?

The dude is 85. I'm perfectly happy to believe that the reason is "I'm old and really tired."

He was 78 when he assumed the office, though. That's pretty old as it is--old enough to have been in the Hitler Youth! Then again that's only like five in vampire years so we might just not have enough information to assess the situation fully.

"Now that his work is done Pogo - affectionately known as Rago the First - retires from Broken Forum"

He'll be missed.

The malevolent power of the dark side grants great power, but takes an even greater toll on the mind and body of the user.

Catholicism doesn't work that way. You don't break with a centuries old precedent just because it's reasonable to. The previous pope for example was in a much worse shape yet he was propped up on the balcony until the very end.
Maybe Ratzinger just didn't care and flipped the finger to the whole curia, but the pressure not to resign must have been enormous, if the reason really was old age.

Yeah, this is really going to wreak havoc on those jokes. Are we going to have to switch from Palpatine to Lando? Weak.

FTFY

At least until we discover this 'retirement' is a coverup and he was really tossed over the papal balcony by Cardinal Darth Turkson.

Ratzinger tried to retire as Bishop for health reasons several times a few years before being elected pope but he kept the office because of the expressed wishes of John Paul II.
I don't like the Catholic church or religion in general much nor do I think Ratzinger was a very good or useful public person overall. However, speculating about deeper, darker motives seems unjustified to me.

Well, you know what they say: Where there's a puff of white smoke, there's fire.

Is there actually such a thing as a useful pope?

The pope is dead, long live the pope.

Allow me to amend: "I'm old, really tired, and a jackass."

Father Sarducci hasn't been promoted in over 30 years, that's the real scandal in the Vatican.

STEALING THAT.

I'm pretty sure this cements the fact I'm going to hell.

"The Pope smokes dope in a velevet robe...."

"A scandal is brewing"? He personally forgave and absolved a priest who would molest ten year old deaf boys because the priest wrote him a letter saying Jesus forgave him. He actually stopped the (useless) internal trial process and didn't report to the police a priest accused of over 200 incidents of touching little boys (after this he was moved to Wisconsin and no one there was notified of his crimes). I mean they have the letters. They also have the letters showing him quietly approving transferring a priest to a place to get treatment for pedophilia but not telling the police. He's linked to abuse allegations, provably linked, from Ireland to California.

No better way to protect your retrograde and scandal ridden legacy than to hand-pick your successor.

Yeah, because our boy Benny is totally an outlier and the Vatican doesn't have a long, storied history of being an enabler for Bad Things.

Not that I assume there's anything dubious in his resignation. He truly was a reluctant Pope and didn't really want the job in the first place.

I don't think that Otterloop meant to indicate otherwise. Just questioning that there could be a notion of a 'scandal brewing' when the Vatican has been knee-deep in scandal for the last decade and this pope in particular can be directly linked to enabling child abuse in many, many cases. If this is all open and public knowledge, what could possibly be a scandal? Even worse, this is all open and public knowledge and it doesn't seem to matter.

Somehow went right over my head, I haven't slept in two days; carry on, people.

The Atlantic rounds up the current conspiracy theories -

I've not seen the documentary, has anyone?

You luterans don't get the Vatican. Of course a pope resigning would be way more scandalous than him enabling pedophiles.

To be clear, I'm not posting seriously. I don't believe there is a conspiracy or a scandal. But this resignation is highly uncustomary and uncharacteristic of the catholic church, so cynic baseless speculation is my spontaneous reaction.

I don't think anyone would be shocked if it is just as stated, he is old and sick and doesn't want to do it anymore. But, given what a doctrinaire prick he has been, most are not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt or let him slide on the obvious hypocrisy.

This is an amazing and elegant proof against the Holy See's version of the doctrine of Apostolic succession. To be succinct: did any of the original apostles quit because they were too pooped to pope?

You can resign from popehood? I didn't even know that was an option.

This leads me to two questions:

1) What kind of a retirement package do popes get?

2) What's the next step in an ex-pope's career? Are there Vatican lobbying firms he can join?

Edit - Looks like the fine folks at slate are already on the case.

Well, with today's economy he'll have to get a job and the only reference he has is one Mexican guy named Jesus so he's pretty screwed.

All-expenses paid "sightseeing" trip to Thailand.