Vatican City State: Pope Benedict XVI, January 2006 - February 2013


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I only hope the personal appartment of the pope at Castel Gandolfo has excellent heating! The palace was built to accommodate the pope during the hot summer weeks in which Rome is quite uninhabitable. I don't know if it was meant to be lived in in winter? The weather is quite cold in Italy at the moment with night temps around 2-5° C and not much warmer during the day (up to 10°C at around noon).
 
I believe there was work going on at the castle over the past few weeks so I'm sure Benedict XVI will be comfortable there.
 
lucien said:
LIVE coverage of His Holiness leaving The Vatican for Castel Gandolfo.

De website van omroep RKK
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Was an impressive farewell from the Vatican,and ditto arrival at Castel Gandolfo where thousands had gathered to welcome the Pontiff.

At 20.00 PM He will remove the Ring of the Fisherman from his finger,while at the Vatican the Camerlengo,His Eminence Cardinal Bertone,will Seal the Papal appartment and the Sede Vacante situation no-one had thought of since 600 years is a fact.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21620718
 
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NGalitzine said:
BBC News - Benedict XVI resignation: The two-pope problem

Pope and anti-Pope? What difficulties may await the new pontiff.
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What utter nonsense,a anti-pope.No really!!..LOL...There is no two Pope problem...The BBC has a problem getting their act together after dan brown..geez...a once respectable news source...yuck... Typical,a screaming header for a new hype.but it will not be.no anti-pope...too many have gone overboard with Dan Brown...Benedict is far from an anti pope and so this is no issue.At all.

He is a pilgrim after today as he said himself,and a modest and humble one,and one too wise to go into hypes of any sort and speculation where that goes as thruth instead of thruth itself.No,after today we will hardly ever hear of him,except maybe when he has been able to publish a book again,and only then.

At this time churches around the world are full with the faithfull praying for Pope Benedict in this last hour as Pontiff.

Difficulties for the new Pontiff?Many,many to tackle,besides the running business as usual and so I hope he will be relatively young and pragmatic and with a progressive twist facing anything that pops-up head on.


In thirty minutes His Holiness will abdicate,the appartment Sealed,"Sede Vacante",we witness History in its rarest form at this moment.
 
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Had you read the article Lucien you would have seen that the discussion originated with 2 Italian theologians.

At least Benedict gets to keep his long time companion and secretary Monsignor Georg Gänswein with him in his retirement, although I can easily imagine the new pontiff replacing him as head of the papal household.
 
Personally I think he is glad it is over and I really wish him all the best especially for his health. I hope he has still a few years in which he can write his books and spend time with his brother.
He has already said this morning that he won't interfere with the affairs of his successors and what's more the new pope will have his utmost respect and obedience. The scenario of a pope and anti-pope is really unlikely for anybody who knows him personally. Yes I will miss him and one could see this afternoon that his close confidants, the cardinals and all the people assembled were really sad that he was leaving. A brilliant theologican and an outstanding human being who realised that he was no longer capable to fulfill his duties as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. My deepest respect for his decision to resign.
And now I am really curious who will become the next pope.
 
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I'm glad he's finally gone and I hope whoever is next was not someone who actively worked to conceal criminal child abuse and someone who has a much more enlightened view on those of other faiths.
 
HRHHermione said:
I'm glad he's finally gone and I hope whoever is next was not someone who actively worked to conceal criminal child abuse and someone who has a much more enlightened view on those of other faiths.
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You are not very knowledgeable about the Catholic faith, otherwise you would know that Joseph Ratzinger in his work as a cardinal never tried to conceal child abuse. Anyone who ever read anything by him could tell you that he would be the first to alarm police if something was wrong and he learned of it outside the confession. But - he was the defender of the doctrine of the Catholic faith. A fundamental idea of that is the confidentiality of the things a priest is told during confession. Ratzinger of course decreed that no matter how earnest the content of the confession, the priest still has to maintain the confidence of it. But the priest of course can ask of the person confessing to go to the police before he or she is granted absolution before God.

You are either a Catholic and accept that or you aren't. But that's the way this faith handles things and one has to see that in his position his reaction was right, even though he personally never condoned child abuse. I have yet to hear of one case where he knew what was going on and didn't act. He has always been a very conservative Catholic and his fellow cardinals knew that and still voted for him, so it was not him alone responsible for being not overly open to other faiths.

But I have to laugh a bit because he is such a consequent German in his reaction: he decided to resign for the good of the church against the chance that God might punish him for it in the afterlife. He sacrificed his own spiritual good for that of the church he had promised to serve and all others be damned! Very Bavarian kind of character:
 
Kataryn said:
You are not very knowledgeable about the Catholic faith, otherwise you would know that Joseph Ratzinger in his work as a cardinal never tried to conceal child abuse. Anyone who ever read anything by him could tell you that he would be the first to alarm police if something was wrong and he learned of it outside the confession. But - he was the defender of the doctrine of the Catholic faith. A fundamental idea of that is the confidentiality of the things a priest is told during confession. Ratzinger of course decreed that no matter how earnest the content of the confession, the priest still has to maintain the confidence of it. But the priest of course can ask of the person confessing to go to the police before he or she is granted absolution before God.
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I'm not going to turn this into a huge off topic fight, but I know quite a bit about the Catholic faith, having been raised Catholic, confirmed Catholic, and having gone through 12 years of Catholic catechism classes, plus taken on quite a few personal studies of the faith.

As someone who no longer considers herself Catholic but who recognizes the inherent good in some church doctrine, it is my personal opinion that Pope Benedict was not a good man, not a good pope, and I personally am quite glad to see him gone and hope that the next pope will be someone I think is more enlightened and more kind.

This is purely my personal opinion. I'm also aware that later in his career, Cardinal Ratzinger tried to clean up some of the early abuses, but he still insisted they be handled by the church and not turned over to secular authorities and I still think this is morally bankrupt. I hope the church moves forward from this chapter in its history in a positive way.
 
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The church have to change but I feel there's more trouble ahead.
 
Kataryn said:
You are not very knowledgeable about the Catholic faith, otherwise you would know that Joseph Ratzinger in his work as a cardinal never tried to conceal child abuse. Anyone who ever read anything by him could tell you that he would be the first to alarm police if something was wrong and he learned of it outside the confession. But - he was the defender of the doctrine of the Catholic faith. A fundamental idea of that is the confidentiality of the things a priest is told during confession. Ratzinger of course decreed that no matter how earnest the content of the confession, the priest still has to maintain the confidence of it. But the priest of course can ask of the person confessing to go to the police before he or she is granted absolution before God.

You are either a Catholic and accept that or you aren't. But that's the way this faith handles things and one has to see that in his position his reaction was right, even though he personally never condoned child abuse. I have yet to hear of one case where he knew what was going on and didn't act. He has always been a very conservative Catholic and his fellow cardinals knew that and still voted for him, so it was not him alone responsible for being not overly open to other faiths.

But I have to laugh a bit because he is such a consequent German in his reaction: he decided to resign for the good of the church against the chance that God might punish him for it in the afterlife. He sacrificed his own spiritual good for that of the church he had promised to serve and all others be damned! Very Bavarian kind of character:
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Well said. Unfortunately most of the Catholics I've run into here tend to be of the more progressive variety, if you are in any way orthodox minded... gird your loins.


LaRae
 
The Cardinals will meet on monday morning march 4th at 09.30AM local time for a pre-conclave to set the date for the Conclave to start.It will depend on as to when ALL Cardinals eligible for election are in Rome as to if the Conclave is pulled forward,as it stands the date is till march 15th.That might change after monday.

The doors at Castel Gandolfo were closed at 20.00PM last night and that is when the Swiss Guard retreated too and were replaced by the Vatican gendarmerie instead.The Swiss Guards are solely to guard the Pontiff,as of 8PM last night,there is none.

A very quiet and yet very symbolic transition.
 
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I am looking for great HQ pics of yesterday, specially of the Pope delivering his last speech in Castel Gandolgo...Please, can anyone help me ??
 
HRHHermione said:
I'm not going to turn this into a huge off topic fight, but I know quite a bit about the Catholic faith, having been raised Catholic, confirmed Catholic, and having gone through 12 years of Catholic catechism classes, plus taken on quite a few personal studies of the faith.

As someone who no longer considers herself Catholic but who recognizes the inherent good in some church doctrine, it is my personal opinion that Pope Benedict was not a good man, not a good pope, and I personally am quite glad to see him gone and hope that the next pope will be someone I think is more enlightened and more kind.

This is purely my personal opinion. I'm also aware that later in his career, Cardinal Ratzinger tried to clean up some of the early abuses, but he still insisted they be handled by the church and not turned over to secular authorities and I still think this is morally bankrupt. I hope the church moves forward from this chapter in its history in a positive way.
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I could not agree more. As far as Ratzinger not being involved in the pedophilia scandal, as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, he absolutely was involved in the 'diciplining' of child molesting priests. There has been much discussed in the media that 30,000 pages of correspondence to and from Ratzinger at that time is about to be released by the courts in the RI and CA ongoing cases. By some, it is considered to be the likely reason he has stepped down; as well as the announcement that he will never gain set foot outside the Vatican. As he is no longer pope, he no longer njoys diplomatic immunity and could be arrested if he leave the Vatican. BTW a little trivia....the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith used to have a much more recognizable name...The Inquisition. Kind of like putting Torquemada in those white robes and red slippers. I really hope that the Conclave has the good sense to elect someone with clean hands on the pedophilia cover up.
 
^^^^
I agree. If this Papacy is remembered for anything it will be remembered for its handling/mishandling of the sex scandals and for the Vatican Bank problems and perhaps for Vatilieaks.
 
One can say and think about the Catholic Church and its Cardinals what one wants and yes we are all aware Ratzinger was nothing more than the Head of the Inquisition but one thing that will never happen is that a former pope will be arrested. This is not a thriller by Dan Brown.
 
Whatever scandals or rumors are brewing behind the scenes, this pope's goodbye was elegant, gracious, compassionate and very humble. Inspiring.
 
I agree with your post Shelo. Other members of the Vatican should take an example IMO. Unfortunately many powerful groups within the RC still exist and will continue to exercise their influence.
 
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