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In Last Sunday Address, Pope Says He Is Following God’s Wishes
In Last Sunday Address, Pope Says He Will Continue to Serve God
(about 2 hours later)
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict spoke from his window for the last time on Sunday, telling the faithful packed into St. Peter’s Square that the first papal abdication in centuries was God’s will and insisting he was not abandoning the Church.
VATICAN CITY — In his last Sunday blessing before he retires, Pope Benedict XVI reassured Catholics that he was not abandoning them but would continue to serve the church even in his retirement.
Four days before the 85-year-old Benedict’s often troubled eight-year rule ends, new talk of scandal hit the cardinals who will choose his successor; one of them, a Scottish archbishop, had to deny news media accusations of misconduct with priests in the 1980s.
Romans, pilgrims and curious tourists filled St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for Benedict’s second-to-last public appearance before he steps down on Thursday, the first pope in six centuries to do so willingly.
With an American cardinal urged not to go to the electoral conclave because of his role in handling sexual abuse cases in the United States, and the Vatican accusing media of running smears to influence the vote, the Church faces a stormy succession.
Reading from prepared remarks as he stood at the window of the Apostolic Palace, Benedict that said he was being called by God “to climb up on the mountain” and to dedicate himself more to “prayer and meditation.”
Benedict, however, defended his shock decision to resign as dictated by his failing health; his address to tens of thousands of well-wishers was met with calls of “Viva il Papa!”
“This doesn’t mean abandoning the church,” the pope added, to the applause of the crowd. “On the contrary, if God asks me, this is because I can continue to serve” the church “with the same dedication and the same love which I have tried to do so until now, but in a way more suitable to my age and to my strength.”
“The Lord is calling me to climb the mountain, to dedicate myself even more to prayer and meditation,” the German-born pontiff said in Italian, his voice strong and clear.
Cardinals from around the world have begun gathering in Rome to greet Benedict before he retires at 8 p.m. on Thursday. At that point, the cardinals will meet to discuss when to begin the conclave to elect his successor.
“But this does not mean abandoning the Church. Actually, if God asks this of me, it is precisely because I can continue to serve her with the same dedication and the same love I have shown so far,” he said, adding that he would be serving the Church “in a way more in keeping with my age and my strengths”.
One member of the crowd in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Jan Cartwright, 61, said she had traveled to Rome from Wales. “We’ve come for the rugby, but we’re Catholic, and it is history, isn’t it,” she said.
As he spoke, two of the some 117 cardinals who will enter the conclave next month to choose his successor as leader of the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics were mired in controversy.
Ms. Cartwright said she was surprised that the pope had decided to resign. “We have the queen,” she said. “No one in the royal family would step down, they just go on until they die, really.” But she said she admired Benedict’s decision. “I think it’s a brave thing to do,” she said. “He’s an old man.”
Britain’s top Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh, rejected claims in The Observer newspaper that he had been involved in unspecified inappropriate behavior with other priests.
Maria Concetta Campanella from Rome was also in the crowd. “It’s a historic moment,” she said. “It teaches us humility. He teaches us that we can’t sit in our chairs forever, that when the time is right, we have to leave the chair.”
The paper said Cardinal O’Brien, 74, known for his outspoken views against homosexuality, had been reported to the Vatican by three priests and a former priest, who said they had come forward to demand he resign and not take part in the conclave.
Vito Ugo, an Augustinian monk holding a Brazilian flag, was taking pictures with two of his fellow monks, all dressed in long black robes. “We feel great emotion to be here,” he said.
“Cardinal O’Brien contests these claims and is taking legal advice,” a spokesman for the cardinal said.
Asked whether he hoped the cardinals would elect a South American pope in the conclave, Brother Ugo smiled. “It’s what God wants,” he said humbly.
He was the second cardinal to be caught up in controversy over his attendance ahead of the conclave. On Saturday, Catholic activists petitioned Cardinal Roger Mahony to recuse himself from the conclave so as not to insult survivors of sexual abuse by priests committed while he was archbishop of Los Angeles..
In that post from 1985 until 2011, Cardinal Mahony worked to send priests known to be abusers out of state to shield them from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s, according to church files unsealed under a federal district. court order last month.
The minds of those in the crowd in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, some holding banners reading “Thank you Holy Father,” were not on scandals, real or potential, but on the Church history unfolding around them.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Sarah Ennis, 21, a student from Minnesota who studies in Rome. “Bitter because we love our Pope Benedict and hate to see him go, but sweet because he is going for a good reason and we are excited to see the next pope.”
Others, however, saw it as a possible harbinger for the Church.
“This is an ill wind blowing,” said Marina Tacconi, a midwife. “It feels like something ugly could happen. I’m 58 years old, I have seen popes come and go. But never one resign.”
The Sunday address was one of Benedict’s last appearances as pontiff before the curtain comes down on a problem-ridden pontificate.
On Wednesday, he will hold his last general audience in St. Peter’s Square and on Thursday he will meet with cardinals and then fly to the papal summer retreat south of Rome.
The papacy will become vacant on Thursday night.
Cardinals will begin meetings the next day to prepare for a secret conclave in the Sistine Chapel.
They have already begun informal consultations by phone and e-mail in the last two weeks since Benedict announced his abdication in order to build a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church.
On Monday, the pope is expected to issue slight changes to Church rules governing the conclave so that it could start before March 15, the earliest it can be held under a detailed constitution by his predecessor John Paul.
Some cardinals believe a conclave should start sooner than March 15 in order to reduce the time in which the Church will be without a leader. But some in the Church believe that an early conclave would give an unfair advantage to cardinals already in Rome and working in the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration, which has been at the center of accusations of ineptitude that some say led Benedict to step down.
The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected by mid-March and then installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.
