Posted on 02/11/2013 5:35:15 AM PST by annalex
Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. 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. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
From the Vatican, 10 February 2013
BENEDICTUS PP XVI
In other words, as more of the seperate Christians, be they Catholics who have left the Church or from other church communites see that those faith communities weaken they will more likely come home to Rome.
Thank you for that erudite response to purposely nasty ignorance.
This made me chuckle thanks!
Just the thought of the Pope being led around by security to the various departments to turn in his various badges/IDs, all while wearing his full Papal regalia....
...I dunno, maybe I’m too irreverent. The news is still so surprising!
I’m Catholic and chuckled at the “giving up the papacy for Lent” joke making the rounds. Not looking forward to bringing that one up at confession....
I believe we are already living in what you just wrote,dear friend.It's only going to get worse from now on.
I am pretty sure it is. There is no Latin version available, so evidently the original is in Italian, and here it is. It says "rinunciare", hence the translator reached for the closest sounding English word. Observe, too, the earlier date in the signature line.
DECLARATIOCarissimi Fratelli,
vi ho convocati a questo Concistoro non solo per le tre canonizzazioni, ma anche per comunicarvi una decisione di grande importanza per la vita della Chiesa. Dopo aver ripetutamente esaminato la mia coscienza davanti a Dio, sono pervenuto alla certezza che le mie forze, per l'età avanzata, non sono più adatte per esercitare in modo adeguato il ministero petrino. Sono ben consapevole che questo ministero, per la sua essenza spirituale, deve essere compiuto non solo con le opere e con le parole, ma non meno soffrendo e pregando. Tuttavia, nel mondo di oggi, soggetto a rapidi mutamenti e agitato da questioni di grande rilevanza per la vita della fede, per governare la barca di san Pietro e annunciare il Vangelo, è necessario anche il vigore sia del corpo, sia dell'animo, vigore che, negli ultimi mesi, in me è diminuito in modo tale da dover riconoscere la mia incapacità di amministrare bene il ministero a me affidato. Per questo, ben consapevole della gravità di questo atto, con piena libertà, dichiaro di rinunciare al ministero di Vescovo di Roma, Successore di San Pietro, a me affidato per mano dei Cardinali il 19 aprile 2005, in modo che, dal 28 febbraio 2013, alle ore 20,00, la sede di Roma, la sede di San Pietro, sarà vacante e dovrà essere convocato, da coloro a cui compete, il Conclave per l'elezione del nuovo Sommo Pontefice.
Carissimi Fratelli, vi ringrazio di vero cuore per tutto l'amore e il lavoro con cui avete portato con me il peso del mio ministero, e chiedo perdono per tutti i miei difetti. Ora, affidiamo la Santa Chiesa alla cura del suo Sommo Pastore, Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo, e imploriamo la sua santa Madre Maria, affinché assista con la sua bontà materna i Padri Cardinali nell'eleggere il nuovo Sommo Pontefice. Per quanto mi riguarda, anche in futuro, vorrò servire di tutto cuore, con una vita dedicata alla preghiera, la Santa Chiesa di Dio.
Dal Vaticano, 10 febbraio 2013
BENEDICTUS PP XVI
Assuming, as I do, that the successor will continue the trajectory traced by His Holiness toward greater recognition of the Tradition and sterner renunciation of the "dictatorship of the relativism" in today's world, we shall see some come and others leave, and in both cases just the right kinds of people doing their coming and their leaving. God is great and God is with us.
the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way. And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming (2 Thessalonians 2:7)Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing but that it should be holy, and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)
God has a plan for all of us. Rejoice.
What is there for God to plan for since He is outside of time and knows our free decisions? He knows the outcome would be love winning and evil losing from eternity.
rejoice
Agreed! I hope the final outcome comes in my lifetime though!
I’m Baptist, and no fan of Popes...but it is nice to see someone with the humility to step aside for the good of others. Rare, and admirable. Heck, I have a hard time being humble enough to admit that age is affecting my ability to go jogging...!
The economy of salvation is brought to the world precisely through the diverse operations of our free wills, is it not?
What I think is happening is the tightening of the Church: it will become smaller and purer, and it will know better who her enemies are. This is the work started by His Holiness and I think he rightly sees it extending beyond his lifetime and ours.
No, I don’t think the end is that near. Christ will come when the hope for the unchurched is extinguished, but we see renewal in the Church. I believe we shall see a collapse of the secular democratic order and a birth of a Christian civilization on the ruins. It will take generations.
Completely Agree!
No, I don’t think the end is that near. Christ will come when the hope for the unchurched is extinguished, but we see renewal in the Church. I believe we shall see a collapse of the secular democratic order and a birth of a Christian civilization on the ruins. It will take generations.
Personally, I don;t like the word "end",I like to think of a new beginning. I pray for the new beginning to come soon with Our Blessed Lord returning.
I hope you agree it is right for us to pray for Jesus to come soon?
Can we pray for Jesus to come sooner? We can and we do: "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil". This describes a desire for sanctity when temptation no longer is necessary for our justification and we have been delivered onto life everlasting. My friend iconographer Victor Krivorotov writes, in an article I have yet to publish in translation,
And finally, in connection with the petition in focus, how are we to understand the conjunction “but”?The passions are strong, and so man may fall into temptation even as he attempts to defeat them. In order that his resistance did not stop, the Lord gave us the sacrament of Penance. If man persists in committing the sin, the Divine Providence allows the influence of the Crooked One so that man realize that he is overpowered by the dark forces and come to reason. This is why we ask the Lord to not lead us into temptation, but at that, even if we fail, then at least protect us from the Crooked One, because that would be catastrophic and we acknowledge that by the words of the prayer.
Ordinarily we see this prayer in the context of individual salvation, but it is no accident that it is given us in the plural form. It is therefore primarily a prayer for us as a Christian nation to be saved as a society.
Do you agree?
I do not think His Holiness would abdicate unless he knows that his successor will continue the work of solidifying the Church, and with greater vigor.
Nothing in Benedict’s character indicates a dominance of a personal motive.
You don’t use that word for people? It’s just a common, everyday word. I don’t read Matthew as forbidding its use....
"And not only this, dear friends, to the Consistory for the sake of the canonization of the three brothers, I summoned you, but also that you communicate the decision of great importance for the life of the Church. My conscience, having ascertained the presence of God again and again, I came to the knowledge of a certain age are no longer fit to be a very grievous to the function of the strength of my Petrine just as well be carried on."
Alex, I see what you’re saying.
There is an end of evil where good triumphs over it
A few good things from the Catechism on this...
681 On Judgment Day at the end of the world, Christ will come in glory to achieve the definitive triumph of good over evil which, like the wheat and the tares, have grown up together in the course of history.
675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.576
676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,577 especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.578
677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.579 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.580 God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.581
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