Historic week looms for Vatican with papal resignation
VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI’s final Sunday prayers in St Peter’s Square will signal the start of a week in the Vatican that will make history with the first voluntary papal resignation in more than 700 years.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims have gathered in Rome from around the world following the ageing pope’s shock announcement that he would step down because he no longer had the strength of body and mind to govern the Catholic Church in modern times.
Crowds are expected to turn out in the Vatican on Sunday and again on Wednesday when the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics will bid a final farewell to ordinary Catholics at a general audience in the Vatican’s 17thcentury plaza.
On Thursday, the pope will meet his cardinals in the morning and take a helicopter to the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo in the afternoon.
At 1900 GMT that same day, Benedict will become only the second pope in the Church’s 2,000year history to resign of his own free will.
Speculation has been rife in recent days over what might have triggered the pope’s decision, with the Panorama weekly and the Repubblica daily saying it was linked to an explosive report with allegations of blackmail against gay Vatican clergymen.
The Vatican has refused to comment on rumours about the secret report compiled by a committee of cardinals investigating leaks of hundreds of confidential documents from the papal office.
The cardinals uncovered intrigue, factionalism and corruption in the Roman Curia, the reports said.
Other recent reports say the resignation was due to the pope’s health condition, which they say may be more serious than the Vatican has revealed.
Benedict has said he will live ‘hidden from the world’ – first at Castel Gandolfo and then in April or May, once renovations are complete, in a former monastery within the Vatican walls on a hillside overlooking St Peter’s Basilica.
The Vatican has said the pope’s divine infallibility – the power of making unquestionable utterances on matters of doctrine – will abandon him the moment he is no longer the pontiff. — AFP