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Redneck_Buddha wrote:The search for a new Pope should have commenced on April 19, 2005, the day Benedict took office. If they are scrambling now, well, they've had nearly eight years and knew that he was going to be "transitional".

I'm not Catholic, but I pay attention to the news. I had no idea he was going to be "transitional." Got anything to support that?

By the way guys, for what it's worth, I did not post this thread to provide opportunities to beat up on Catholicism, Catholics, or on the Pope. I just spent a mentoring session a couple of hours ago with a young man who told me that this Pope had been a Nazi during WW2 in Poland. Now, this has been thoroughly and completely debunked (I set my young friend straight on it), but people keep repeating it. Why is that? It's ignorance, plain and simple. If you were a person of some Christian spiritual authority in Afghanistan, and you interceded with the Taliban to protect your church, would that make you a Taliban? No, of course not. Such charges are as ridiculous as the race card.

I was alive and remember the Kennedy/Nixon presidential campaign. Republicans said that if Kennedy won, he would give the Pope authority over his decisions as President. Did he? No, of course not. That's just ignorant poppycock. The media like to beat up on the Catholic church because it is a big, easy target. Since, unlike many Protestant denominations, it has a large centralized "governmental" structure, it is easy and convenient to try and tar ALL believers with the sins of a few. It is cheap yellow journalism, and it's intellectually bankrupt.

I posted this thread because Pope Benedict XVI is a very important person on the world stage. There are approximately 1.2 BILLION Catholics in the world (SOURCE), about 4 times as many Catholics as there are Americans, and he's sort of like their "President." That makes the Pope an immensely important person in the world, and the fact that this one is stepping down—the first one to do so in 600 years—is a big news story.

Can we have a talk about what that might mean, without taking swats at the believers?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21411304
11 February 2013 Last updated at 10:09 ET
Pope Benedict XVI in shock resignation

Pope Benedict XVI is to resign at the end of this month after nearly eight years as the head of the Catholic Church, saying he is too old to continue at the age of 85.

The unexpected development - the first papal resignation in nearly 600 years - surprised governments, Vatican-watchers and even his closest aides.

The Vatican says it expects a new Pope to be elected before Easter.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope in 2005 after John Paul II's death.

The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the move has come as a shock - but adds that in theory there has never been anything stopping Pope Benedict or any of his predecessors from stepping aside.

Under the Catholic Church's governing code, Canon Law, the only conditions for the validity of such a resignation are that it be made freely and be properly published.

But resignation is extremely rare: the last Pope to step aside was Pope Gregory XII, who resigned in 1415 amid a schism within the Church.

Apparently, nobody saw this coming.