Pope to step down 28 February per Italian news and BBC

[Peace Patriot]

119. No, the Vatican is a monarchy. Monarchs don't resign.

Back in the Dark Ages, the Church replicated the monarchical system from the physical world, to the spiritual world, and invented a "lineage" back to St. Peter (not incidentally excluding Mary Magdalen). They frequently mention this "lineage" as if it were an actual biological lineage. Kings might be overthrown, beheaded, etc., but they don't cease being kings, nor do their progeny cease being "royal" and often the rallying figures to returning that "lineage" to power. The Roman Catholic Church has many strange and extremely contradictory concepts. This is one of them--that, though the Pope is supposedly chosen by a vote of the Cardinals, he is simultaneously chosen by God (the Cardinals are "inspired&quot and thus becomes a descendant of St. Peter and a monarch by right.

Popes don't resign because of illness, any more than kings do. They simply fade away and die, while the Curia and others run the Church. There are certainly intrigues and so forth, as the monarch lay dying, just as there are with a biological monarchy. But there is never any notion that illness requires a Pope to discard this sacred, kingly mantle.

Benedict's age and illness are an EXCUSE--a P.R. point--not the truth. Something VERY serious lay behind this--the Vatican banking investigation, the child abuse scandal or something else.

It's conceivable that some faction among the hierarchy has forced him out, due to the cumulative effects of the known scandals, not anything specific but different things added up, but why would they would be in such a hurry, as to overturn 400-600 years of precedent (calling the very monarchical nature of the Vatican into question)? Why don't they just wait it out (given his age, illness)? Popes have always survived scandals--some of them really incredibly bad in the deep past (and recent scandals such as the Italian banking scandal of the 1980s). Another strange concept of the Church: Popes don't have to be "holy" to be Pope. Same with monarchs. Good king, bad king, it doesn't matter--he's king by right of birth (and, with the Pope, by right of God-appointed "lineage&quot .

This makes me think that, whatever it is, it's REALLY bad.