“The pope has just broken a taboo by breaking with several centuries of practice,” Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris, told The Guardian, praising the move as a “liberating act for the future.”
That’s right, folks. The pope broke up with God.
In a move that hasn’t happened in about 600 years, Pope Benedict XVI resigned from his office this week.
“Norbert Denef, from north Germany, who was abused as a boy by his local priest for six years and was later offered €25,000 (then £17,000) by his diocesan bishop to keep quiet, said: ‘We won’t miss this pope,’” according to The Guardian.
It was not a fun papacy, but really, when has there ever been a fun papacy? Plenty of sexual abuse scandals and Nazi jokes galore, and here we are eight years later.
It’s like the pope is graduating along with the current senior graduating class of UF. Our time here on campus actually sounds a lot like Benedict’s time in the Vatican.
His 89-year-old brother, Georg Ratzinger, according to The Guardian article, said, “Age is weighing on him. My brother would like more rest at this age.”
We feel ya. We’ve been at this school for four years, and enough is enough. We’d also like to resign, but we don’t have that kind of freedom. What do you think the pope will do now that he’s a single man out on the town? Breaking up with God is probably a pretty liberating experience.
Will he take a year off and study abroad? Will he go on as many dates as “The Bachelor”? Will he go to grad school, like some of us might? Maybe he’ll try to make it in the Big Apple or the City of Angels over on the West Coast. He’s got some options. So do we.
“This is disconcerting, he is leaving his flock,” said Alessandra Mussolini, a parliamentarian who is granddaughter of Italy’s wartime dictator, according to a Reuters article. “The pope is not any man. He is the vicar of Christ. He should stay on to the end, go ahead and bear his cross to the end. This is a huge sign of world destabilization that will weaken the Church.”
Listen, maybe he just needed some time to find himself. He has to learn to love himself before he can love others.
“In his announcement, the pope told the cardinals that in order to govern ‘... 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,’” the Reuters article said.
Sometimes we need to take mental health breaks while studying, so it doesn’t get too intense or stressful. We don’t blame the pope for stepping down at all. We get it. It’s time to move on to bigger and better things. Most world leaders seem to accept his decision with heavy hearts and understanding.
By Easter, a new pope will be selected, just like the next class of Gators. Are you ready for change?
Because if the pope knows when to step down and make hard life decisions, we should, too.
