6 Popes have resigned

POPE BENEDICT XVI’s announcement that he was stepping down because he was too elderly and infirm for the job was the first papal resignation in 598 years.

It put Benedict among the small handful, out of the 265 recognized Popes in history, who have stepped down as leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

The last Pope to resign, Gregory XII, did so in 1415, 10 years into his tenure, in the midst of a leadership crisis in the Church known as the Great Western Schism.

Three rival Popes had been selected by separate factions, and a group of bishops called the Council of Constance was trying to heal the schism.

Papal historian Donald S. Prudlo said Gregory offered to resign so that the council could choose a new Pope whom all factions would recognize. It took two years after Gregory’s departure to elect his successor, Martin V.

Other Popes known to have resigned:

Pope Celestine V: A recluse who only reluctantly accepted his election in 1294, he resigned and fled the Vatican after just three months to wander in the mountains.

According to a history timeline on Christianity.com, the bishop who became his successor, Boniface VIII, was intent on ensuring that Celestine V did not become an example for future Popes, and ordered Celestine V imprisoned as he was about to sail to Greece.

Celestine V died in custody in 1296 at the age of 81, and was declared a saint in 1313.

Benedict IX: One of the youngest Popes, he was elected at the age of about 20 in 1032 and became notorious for licentious behavior and for selling the papacy to his godfather, Gregory VI, in 1045, and then twice reclaiming the position.

Gregory VI: Considered a man of great reputation, Gregory VI had thought Benedict IX unworthy of the papacy, and essentially bribed him to resign. He was recognized as Pope in Benedict’s stead, but when Benedict’s attempt at marriage failed and he wanted to return to the papacy, a power struggle ensued.

A council of bishops called upon Gregory VI to resign after less than two years in office because he had obtained the papacy through bribery.

The first Pope to resign was Pontian, in 235, when Christianity was still an illegal religion in the Roman Empire. He was deported from Rome to Sardinia to a prison known for its brutality. Since he knew he would die there, he resigned so a successor would be in place.