Pope Benedict XVI to step down by February end

12 February, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI, 85, Monday (February 11) expressed his intentions to resign because he did not feel fit both mentally and physically to cope with his job. He has decided to step down on February 28. The Vatican is likely to have a new Pope by the end of March, it is speculated.

According to the Vatican, the Pope had not decided to step down because of “difficulties in the papacy". The Pope said that he was renouncing the ministry of the Bishop of Rome with a sense of freedom. However, the Pope's decision has come as shock to conservative Roman Catholics all over the world.

The tenure of German-born Pope was marked by child sexual abuse in the Church, his controversial address with negative remarks about another religion and a scandal of leaking of his private papers by his personal butler.

Of late, the Pope, who was elected to the papacy on April 19, 2005, had looked quite frail in public, being helped to walk by those around him on many occasions though he had not been suffering from specific illness.

Benedict XVI will be remembered for his opposition to excessive consumerism as he had stated once that 'adolescents, youths and even children were easy victims of the corruption of love, deceived by unscrupulous adults who, lying to themselves and to them, draw them into the dead-end streets of consumerism'. He had done the extent of blaming outsourcing for greater availability of consumer goods leading to undermining and downsizing of social security systems.