Why did the pope retire?

[Hamlette]

Watching Hardball and Tweety doesn't even question why he retired. I have no doubt it's the mounting evidence that he covered up all of the child molestation. Maybe its because I just watched Mea Maximus Culpa on HBO last week. Maybe the movie was part of the motivation. Maybe I'm nuts.

9 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	He resigned because he is old a frail, even though all other popes serve while frail.
	1 (11%)
	He resigned because of the sex scandal, what is known or what is yet to be uncovered.
	8 (89%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Buzz Clik]

1. Not sure I care.

[Politicalboi]

2. I hope he gets exposed for what he truly is

Just another asshole who ships pedophiles to other churches to molest other kids.

[Earth_First]

3. He wasn't a hat person...

He hated that hat.

[BlueStreak]

4. Could it be because he was the

Worst.
Pope.
Ever.


I don't know if he was the worst ever. But he certainly did nothing to constructively deal with all the perverts in the pulpit. And he tried to move the doctrine back 150 years. He was the man on the scene when the church lost most of the $billion from those sex predator lawsuits, and that was money the church could not afford to lose. His reign has seen a widening of the divide between the Sisters and the Priests, and I'll stand with the Sisters if I have to make a choice.

At the end of the day, I don't really care because I'm an atheist. But objectively, it seems like he was a singularly poor pope -- or at best, the wrong man at the wrong time.

[oldhippydude]

5. worn out from coverage of the Pope-aratzi ?..........

[frogmarch]

6. The Church knows it's time for a makeover.

Damage control could be part of the reason he's retiring. The Catholic Church is catching a lot of flack these days for various things, including child molestation. The Church needs to put on a new face to help the world forget.

[BlueStreak]

8. This is the perfect time for the Vatican to launch that new reality TV show

they've been thinking about: Incense Wars

Or here's one that absolutely can't miss. Candid cameras in the confessional.

[slackmaster]

7. I just heard a guy on the radio say it was because women are out of their place

I think he was trolling the talk show host.

[DODI]

9. Sadly, it maybe a case of follow the money

EU is pissed at VC due to money laundering issues. The children should be the reason, but is probably the money issues.

[SeattleVet]

10. Too pooped to pope? nt

[japple]

11. Because his neck was too frail to uphold the papal crown and his

body too weak to support those papal vestments. Even with the support of the papal mace, he just couldn't dress for his role any longer.

[rightsideout]

12. He just needs a papal neck brace and a scooter

They can make them to match.

[Glassunion]

13. Maybe the hat is just really fucking uncomfortable.

[longship]

14. Meh! Does it even matter?

The Catholic Church will never admit they were wrong about the sex scandal anyway. So what's with all the cockamaimie conspiracy theories when they have, and always have had, the power to sweep it under the rug. This, no matter what the scandal or the evidence.

Read about Pope Alexander VI, the Borgia pope, for details of how it's done. Although that was the turn of the sixteenth century, the church had been doing the same for centuries preceding that.

This behavior goes way, way back, probably to near the birth of the church, when they decided to make it a hierarchy of allegedly celibate men.

They no longer need to force a pope out for scandal and they haven't for many, many centuries. Well, there was that anti-pope thing in the fifteenth century.

Why else would they call their adherents sheep!?

[FedUpWithIt All]

15. Last year there was a leaked assassination report.

The report was written up after an Archbishop Paolo Romeo met with Chinese businessmen and told them the Pope would be dead in a year and that the Pope was having internal problems with Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. A Wikipedia search of Paolo Romeo suggests he is also planning to resign this month.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2107167,00.html

The Pope actually came out later in an unprecedented show of public solidarity with Cardinal Bertone.

Supposedly Bertone has had a heavy hand in lining up a significant number of Italians for participation in the future Papal Conclave

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303684004577506880615485076.html

Cardinal Bertone's full name and birthplace, which should be interesting to some, is Tarcisio Pietro (Peter) Evasio Bertone and he was born in Romano Canavese, Piedmont, Italy.

[backscatter712]

16. He was having a hard time justifying his Viagra prescription under a vow of celibacy?

That and the altar boys kept hiding his pill bottles...