Text of pope announcement he will resign Feb. 28

Text of pope announce­ment he will resign Feb. 28

The Asso­ci­ated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Bene­dict XVI announced Mon­day he would resign Feb. 28 because he is sim­ply too old to carry on. Here is the text of his announce­ment, deliv­ered to car­di­nals gath­ered for a cer­e­mony to name three new saints.

“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 bar­que 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.”

Posted by AP News on Feb 11 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.