I’m Catholic; been to The Vatican 3-4,times. A truly moving experience.
I’d like to know the real reason Benedict “retired”.
I would as well.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the fact remains that only about 4-5 Popes had resigned in the 2000 years before Benedict, NONE had done so due to advanced age or illness (it is simply NOT done in the Catholic Church...the post is considered a lifetime job regardless of what shape the office holder is in, and the Catholic Church does NOT break with tradition lightly), and the most recent resignation before Benedict had been a necessity 600 years earlier to end a schism crisis in the Catholic Church with three men claiming the office of Pope.
Numerous fellow Catholics swore up and down back in 2013 that Benedict MUST be gravely ill and would drop dead ANY DAY NOW, and that I was an "idiot" for not seeing the "evidence" of this. Since he's alive and well 3 years later, none of them have apologized for bashing me for questioning the "he's secretly DYING!" argument.