Pope Benedict XVI said Monday he lacks the strength
to fulfill his duties and on Feb. 28 will become the first pontiff in 600 years
to resign. The announcement sets the stage for a conclave in March to elect a
new leader for world’s 1 billion Catholics. The announcement took the Vatican —
and the rest of the world — by surprise.
Benedict
emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope — the leader of more than
a billion Roman Catholics worldwide — requires “both strength of mind and
body.”
“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,” he told the cardinals.
The
move allows the Vatican to hold a conclave before Easter to elect a new pope.The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants. The most famous resignation was Pope Celestine V in 1294; Dante placed him in hell for it.
When
Benedict was elected at age 78, he was the oldest pope chosen in nearly 300
years. At the time, he has already been planning to retire as the Vatican’s
chief orthodoxy watchdog to spend his final years writing in the “peace and
quiet” of his native Bavaria.
You may wonder how the next Pope will be selected.
Under
Canon Law, any Catholic man in good
standing can be elected pope. Since 1522 he has invariably been one of
the cardinals, but any bishop, priest, deacon, or Catholic layman could be
selected. If a non-bishop were elected as pope, he would have to be ordained a
bishop before taking the throne, for the pope is also the Bishop of Rome. Of
the nine 20th-century popes, their average age at the time of election was 65
years, with John XXIII the oldest at 76 and John Paul II the youngest at 58.
No
earlier than 15 days and no later than 20 days after a pope's death, the
College of Cardinals meets in conclave to elect a new pope. The cardinals are
literally locked into a room until they have elected a new pope. Cardinals are
not permitted to have any contact with the outside world (no television, no
newspapers, no letters, no phone calls) during the papal elections under pain
of excommunication.
All
cardinals are allowed entry into conclave, even those who do not vote. Each
voting cardinal is also permitted to bring with him a secretary and a servant
(and, in the case of illness, a doctor). All those admitted into conclave who
do not vote are sworn to secrecy and completely sequestered as well.
Conclave
takes place in the Sistine Chapel,
a small room with the famous ceiling painted by Michelangelo within St.
Peter's Basilica. During conclave, which can take days, the cardinals sleep in St. Martha's House, an area inside the
Vatican (just 350 meters from the Sistine Chapel) with 130 rooms.
Pope
John Paul II established the following rules for electing his successor: The
maximum number of elector cardinals is 120. Any cardinal who turns 80
years old before the day the papacy is vacated cannot take part in the
election. The pope is elected by write-in vote on a secret ballot. A two-thirds-plus-one
majority is required to elect a pope. For as long as necessary, two votes
are held in the morning and afternoon, for a total of four per day. If a new
pope is not selected after 12 to 13 days, the cardinals may choose to allow
selection of a new pope by a simple majority (i.e., 50% plus one).
After
the vote, all the ballots and notes are burned. If the proper majority has been
reached and the elected person has accepted, white smoke appears above the
Vatican to inform the anxiously-awaiting world that a pope has been elected. If
a pope has not been elected, water or a special chemical is added to the
ballots so that black smoke appears. The vote is repeated for as long as it
takes until a pope has been elected. In 1978, Pope John Paul II was elected
after eight ballots over two days.
As
soon as a majority vote has been reached, the Cardinal Dean asks the pope-elect
(who is invariably already present) two questions: (1) whether he
accepts the nomination and (2) by what name he wishes to be known. If he
accepts, his pontificate begins at that moment and will continue until his
resignation or death.
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