STATEMENT OF POPE
BENEDICT XVI ON HIS RESIGNATION AS SUPREME PONTIFF OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
Full text of Pope's declaration
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,
subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for
the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the
Gospel, 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.
For this reason, and well aware of
the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the
ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the
Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at
20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a
Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose
competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most
sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my
ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy
Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore
his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her
maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff.
With regard to myself, I wish to also
devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated
to prayer.
From the Vatican, 10 February 2013