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Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, held a briefing for reporters on February 14, providing more information about plans for the retirement of Pope Benedict and the election of his successor. He revealed: Archbishop Georg Ganswein, who has served for years as the private secretary to Benedict XVI, will continue to live with the Pontiff after his retirement. However the archbishop, who was recently appointed as prefect of the pontifical household, will continue to serve in that role as well. The new Pontiff could, if he wished, select a replacement.The Vatican will continue to provide security...

Surprise and shock are an understatement when it comes to Pope Benedict XVI‘s resignation. Only a handful of Popes have called it quits. The Pope’s decision continues to spark speculation about who the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church will be. This decision will have far reaching impact for Catholics around the world… and certainly for Protestants. As most readers know, I’m not Catholic. I’m an American Baptist clergyman. I come from a tradition that fought to continue the reforms of the Church of England. Baptists were one of the many English separatist groups that wanted to go further...

Pope Benedict XVI’s sudden announcement that he would resign by the end of the month took the church and the world by surprise, in large part because it was a move without precedent in the modern world. But what comes next is as old and familiar as the papacy itself: Speculating about who will succeed to the Throne of St. Peter. Indeed, within months of Benedict’s own election in 2005, church insiders and online oddsmakers were trying to figure out who might be next, given that Benedict—now 85—was already aging, increasingly frail, and had himself declared that he did not...

On Feb. 10, the world was shocked to hear that Pope Benedict would step down from his Papal office on Feb. 28, and become the first leader of the Catholic church to resign from office in over 500 years. However, speculation for his replacement is already under way, and the front runner to become the next Pope has strong ties to the creation of a global economic system, as well as being a prime candidate to an ancient Catholic prophecy suggesting he would help lead the world into a new order. “The front runner to be the next pope...

"900-year-old Catholic prophecy says successor will be 'Peter the Roman'"Although a Roman Catholic pope had not stepped down in nearly 600 years, the startling resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was predicted by the co-authors of a book published last spring about a medieval prophecy that the next pontiff will be the last. In “Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope is Here,” co-authors Tom Horn and Cris Putnam examine St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of the Popes,” said to be based on his prophetic vision of the next 112 popes, beginning with Pope Celestine II, who died in 1144. Malachy presented a description of...

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Oct. 28, 2012. Credit: Anne Hartney/CNA. Vatican City, Feb 12, 2013 / 08:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Amid the buzz created by the Pope’s announcement that he will retire, it could be easy to miss the fact that his last Mass will be on Ash Wednesday and not in the normal location for the first day of Lent. “It’s very clear that St. Peter’s is a much bigger church than Santa Sabina in Aventino, so for a celebration in which we expect there will be a lot of faithful, bishops...

He served out of duty, not ambition. After John Paul II’s death, Benedict emerged as the indispensable man, without the least bit of angling for that role. He didn’t seek the papacy; it simply fell upon him. He had hoped the college of cardinals would select someone else. But his acute intellect, grasp of the Church’s crisis, and closeness to John Paul II made him the obvious choice. Given this background, his resignation appears more understandable. He entered the papacy humbly and now leaves it humbly. His resignation is a great loss for the Church and the world. He represented...

Just hours after Pope Benedict XVI‘s surprising Feb. 28 resignation, bookmakers have already started placing odds on his successor. Quickest off the mark was the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, which has already gone through three favorites for the position, starting off with Nigerian Francis Arinze, before shifting to Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson and then to Canadian Marc Ouellet — who at the time of this writing is the most favored option, with odds of 11 to 4. A rival bookie, Ladbrokes, currently has Turkson as the slight favorite at 3 to 1, followed by Arinze (7 to 2) and then...

ROME, Feb. 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As Catholics and people of good will across the globe grapple with Pope Benedict XVI’s shocking announcement Monday morning that he will resign the papacy at 8 pm on Feb. 28th, Catholic and pro-life leaders are offering gratitude for his eight years at the helm of the Barque of Peter. The media frenzy over the first papal resignation in six hundred years has brought a flurry of response from Church commentators. LifeSiteNews has spoken with numerous leaders at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life as well as top pro-life activists in Europe and North...

BERLIN – The pope's brother, Georg Ratzinger, says the pontiff had been advised by his doctor not to take any more transatlantic trips and had been considering stepping down for months.

He never had a chance. From the moment he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s on April 19, 2005, to greet the faithful, Benedict XVI faced an insurmountable problem: He was not John Paul II. Benedict’s decision to resign the papacy is being blamed on his age – nearly 86 – and his health – never robust. He might just as well have been diagnosed with a broken papal heart.

Are we headed towards an apocalypse? First an asteroid comes close to the Earth, then the British start eating horse and now … the Pope resigns. Resigning is something that Popes very rarely do. That last time it was done voluntarily was by Celestine V in 1294; Gregory XII stepped down under political pressure in 1415. By contrast, John Paul II remained in his position regardless of his declining health – a testament to the man’s extraordinary will power.

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,...

At the Angelus, Benedict XVI invites prayers for Week dedicated to Christian Unity (18-25 January). This year's theme, "What the Lord requires of us" (cf. I 6.6 to 8), was chosen and developed by an ecumenical group in India. On January 25, Vespers at St. Paul Outside the Walls, along with representatives of the Christian Churches. A prayer for peace for "an end to the massacres of unarmed civilians, to all violence, and to find the courage of dialogue and negotiation."Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "One of the most serious sins that disfigures the face of the Church is its visible...

Pope Benedict XVI has weighed in on a heated debate over gay marriage, criticising new concepts of the traditional family and warning that mankind itself was at stake. "In the fight for the family, the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question," the Pope said in Italian during an end-of-year speech. "The question of the family ... is the question of what it means to be a man, and what it is necessary to do to be true men," he said. The Pope spoke of the "falseness" of gender theories...

Pope Benedict leads Corpus Christi procession in Rome on June 7, 2012. Rome, Italy, Jun 7, 2012 / 05:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI says the Second Vatican Council did not reject Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass, including the Corpus Christi procession that he led this evening in Rome. “One unilateral interpretation of the Second Vatican Council has penalized this dimension, restricting in practice the Eucharist to the moment of celebration,” the Pope said during his homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi on June 7. “In this case, the accentuation placed on the celebration of the Eucharist acted...

Patriarch Gregorios III Laham Rumors of a papal trip to Lebanon have been confirmed by the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which will welcome Pope Benedict XVI at the start of his Sept. 14-16 visit. “We came to him and now he's coming to us,” said Patriarch Gregorios III, a major participant in the 2010 synod of bishops that brought many Arab Church leaders to the Vatican. He confirmed recent talk of a papal visit during a March 15 press conference at the Melkite Catholics' headquarters in Rome. The Pope “will come to support Christians so that...

In a new book, Father Amorth, the exorcist for the diocese of Rome, gives a bizarre account of how he and two assistants brought a pair of "possessed" Italian men to one of the Pope's weekly audiences in St Peter's Square in May 2009. In his book, "The Last Exorcist – My Fight Against Satan", he claimed the mere presence of the pontiff cured the men of their demonic afflictions. Father Amorth said his two female assistants escorted the two men into St Peter's Square as the Pope was driven between crowds of faithful in the white "Popemobile" jeep. The...

Jubilee Medal of St. Benedict  The medal of St. Benedict is a very powerful sacramental with exorcizing properties; the exorcism is written right on it. First a little history: St. Benedict of Nursia, Italy (A.D. 480-543), the twin brother of St. Scholastica, is considered to be the Father of Western monasticism, and his "Rule of St. Benedict" came to be the basis of organization for many religious orders (his own Order has its cradle at Monte Cassino, Italy, about 80 miles South of Rome). At any rate, in order to understand the symbology of the Medal, you must know of...

Susan Sarandon, who won an Oscar for playing a nun, has called Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi. In response, the Catholic League has called her dumb. Actor Bob Balaban was interviewing Sarandon, 65, onstage Saturday at Long Island's Bay Street Theater when she mentioned she sent the pope a copy of Sister Helen Prejean's book "Dead Man Walking." "The last one (John Paul II), not this Nazi one we have now," she said. When Balaban raised an eyebrow at the remark, Sarandon merely repeated it. Some in the audience laughed. "Perhaps only in the Hamptons could Sarandon get a laugh...