Nardi reports that just a few years earlier, in July of 2002, the question of a possible retirement was was put to the Pope himself, and his response was clear and emphatic:
“A Pope Emeritus is impossible.”
This exchange is reported to have taken place at the Toronto residence of Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter between the Pope and former media magnate Lord Conrad Black. Black first reported the conversation in a 2005 issue of the Catholic Herald.
Carter pushing for Wojtyla's resignation fits the time frame of Gottfried's Danneels statement in 2003 that after Wojtyla they would have a Committee to replace the Papacy with each sitting member rotating as head for a fixed term, say six months.
Ratzinger was not forced out. He resigned to set in motion the destruction of the OFFICE of the Papacy as well.
Exactly. It certainly created a good cop-bad cop situation, now didn't it? One of these guys must be the real pope, right?