Great news out of the Vatican that Pope Benedict XVI is resigning as leader of the Roman Catholic Church. The announcement came during a meeting of Vatican cardinals Monday morning & will take effective Feb. 28th. The most homophobic anti gay Pope stated "he had been thinking about this for a long time & has decided to do it for the good of the church." Maybe there really is a God. According to The Associated Press, '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,' he told the cardinals. 'I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only by words & deeds but no less with prayer and suffering.' The Pope is 85. Almost 600 years ago the last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants. Benedict has led the church since 2005. He succeeded Pope John Paul II. Remember he gave one of the most anti gay speeches in December expressing his opposition to gay marriage, denouncing what he described as people eschewing their God-given gender identities to suit their sexual choices & destroying the very "essence of the human creature" in the process. He then went on to dedicate this year to promoting traditional family values in the face of gains by gay marriage proponents in the U.S. & Europe & efforts to legalize gay marriage in places like France & Britain. Hopefully his replacement will be more evolved on marriage equality.
Updates to Come…:)
1 comment:
Sadly, this is not great news. Better that he paased on while still Pope. Now he gets to personally select a successor, who will be as extreme as he is on gay issues. That person will probably be considerably younger and in much better health. I do not see the Catholic Church becoming any less homophobic any time soon.
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