I woke up this morning to the Beneficent Mr. Hall telling me that Pope Benedict XVI would resign.
I’m still sort of reeling from that news. I mean, Popes don’t resign. Well, not since the Middle Ages.
And Popes are not like Presidents. Presidents retire to their nice homes and catch up with the family, maybe do a little horseback riding, golf, get in a strip poker game for a change. Occasionally, a former President will get a call along the lines of “When you were president, what did you do?” But I think most of the time, the new guy wants to go it alone, make the job his own.
So what do you do with a resigned Pope? It’s…it’s unprecedented is what it is. The new Pope will most likely be named on Easter, so I suppose we shall all have to wait and see what happens in this historic moment.
Meanwhile, I wrote about Authorgraph and the age of digital book signings over at The Muffin.
Pope Benedict is a multi-published author, you know. Maybe he’ll finally have time to send out a couple personal inscriptions to his readers.
Just a thought.
Cathy C. Hall Writes 
I was surprised at the news about Pope Benedict too. First time in 600 years, is what I heard. Oh, I’ll pop over to The Muffin to find out what’s new.
Yes, I’d say 600 years is quite a while between resignations! 😉
It was a surprise. I suppose we’ll never know exactly why he made the decision, but I think it was a brave one. The Pope holds a position of power. Not many men give power away without a fight, and yet this man decided (for his own reasons, health or otherwise) that it was best if he step down. To me, that’s impressive.
I think watching John Paul II’s health deteriorate had something to do with it, Lisa. It’s a tough job, being a Pope, and from what I’ve read, he just didn’t feel he was strong enough to handle the rigors of the position and felt like, for the good of the Church, he’d step down.