Feb. 11 Photo Brief: Pope Benedict XVI resigns, Pope candidates, prepping for Westminster dog show, European Sauna Marathon
Pope Benedict XVI resigns top post citing health concerns, a look at potential Pope candidates, prepping for the Westminster dog show, something called the European Sauna Marathon and more in today’s daily brief. | Warning: Photos may depict injury or death.
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- This handout picture released by the Vatican Press Office on February 11, 2013 shows Pope Benedict XVI addressing an ordinary consistory at The Vatican the same day. Pope Benedict XVI announced he will resign on February 28, a Vatican spokesman told AFP, which will make him the first pope to do so in centuries. (Obsservatore Romano via AFP/Getty Images)
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- This combo made with twelve file picture on February 11, 2013 shows Cardinals likely to succeed to Pope Benedict XVI who announced today he will step down at the end of this month after an eight-year pontificate. Top row from left: Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodrigues Maradiaga, Argentine Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Mexican Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, Brazilian Joao Braz de Aviz, and Philippines’ Luis Antonio Tagle. Bottom row from left : Austrian Cristoph Schonborn, Hungarian Peter Erdoe, Italian Angelo Scola, Canadian Marc Ouellet, Nigerian Francis Arinze, and Nigerian John Onaiyekan. (Photo Desk/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Syrian rebels relocate a T-72 tank, captured from government forces two months ago, in the village of Kfarruma in the flashpoint Syrian province of Idlib near the border with Turkey, on February 10, 2013. The rebels control large swathes of territory in northern and eastern Syria but have made little headway in major Syrian cities, where military stalemates have persisted for months. (Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Honduran policemen arrest several young men members of the Olympia club’s Ultrafiel fans group, notoriously infiltrated by the “maras” (juvenile gangs), in Tegucigalpa, on February 10, 2013. President Porfirio Lobo ordered the execution of the Freedom Operation, aiming to pacify low income and suburban areas of the capital ant of San Pedro Sula, 240 km northward, two of the world most dangerous cities. (Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A man collects Terfeziaceae, or desert truffles, in a desert south of Samawa, 168 miles south of Baghdad February 10, 2013. Truffles are expensive at $45 per kilogram, and are considered a delicacy in Iraq. Men search for truffles, which can be found between the months of February and March, by themselves in the remote areas of the desert. Picture taken February 10, 2013. (Mohammed Ameen/Reuters)
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- A monk points to a picture from a book of the Dalai Lama (C) beside Choekyi Gyaltsen, the 10th Panchen Lama (2nd L), at a Tibetan house in Labrang Monastery during the Tibetan new year, in Xiahe county, Gansu Province, February 11, 2013. Tibetans in a northwest part of China which has been a focus of self-immolation protests against Chinese rule marked a low-key lunar New Year on Monday, with many saying celebrations were inappropriate while the burnings continued. At least 20 people have set themselves on fire in the region around Xiahe in Gansu province over the last year, according to exiles and rights groups. Xiahe is home to a large ethnically Tibetan population and also to the monastery at Labrang, one of the most important centers for Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan lunar new year is supposed to be a time for celebration, but many Tibetans who spoke to Reuters in Xiahe said there would be no entertainment this year. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
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- Ewan MacKay stands with ‘Angus More of Glengoyne’, which was sold at the 122nd Highland Cattle Society spring sale to a buyer from the United States for GBP Five Thousand on February 11, 2013 in Oban, Scotland. The show and sale is held over two days and is open to all highland breed enthusiasts, attracting many buyers from across Europe and North America. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
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- A doctor collects blood from a child showing symptoms of leishmaniasis for a blood test at a hospital in Aleppo, February 11, 2013. Doctors in Aleppo and Deir al-Zor have reported outbreaks of leishmaniasis, an endemic tropical disease transmitted by sand-flies that causes skin ulcers resembling leprosy, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Poor waste management and lack of hygiene have fuelled its spread, but the U.N. agency is trying to deliver medicines to both hotspots, WHO spokesman Glenn Thomas told a news briefing. (Muzaffar Salman/Reuters)
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- A tribesman carries a Yemen national flag as he walks between, chairs before a rally to commemorate the second anniversary of the uprising against Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Bani Hushaish, north of the capital Sanaa February 11, 2013. (Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)
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- A Sadhu or a Hindu holyman sits at the door of an overcrowded passenger train after boarding, at a railway station in the northern Indian city of Allahabad February 11, 2013. A stampede at a railway station in Allahabad killed at least 36 Hindu pilgrims on Sunday, the busiest day of the world’s largest religious festival at which some 30 million had gathered to wash away their sins in the sacred Ganges river. Twenty-seven of the dead were women, mostly elderly and poor. An eight-year-old girl was also crushed to death. (Jitendra Prakash/Reuters)
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- Owen, a standard Poodle, is groomed before judging at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show February 11, 2013 in New York. (Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A Bichon Frise stands in the grooming area during the 137th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York, February 11, 2013. More than 2,700 prized dogs will be on display at the annual canine competition. Two new breeds, the Russell terrier and the Treeing Walker coonhound, will be introduced in the contest. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
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- Robert Dinero Johnson, a Shar Pei, at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show February 11, 2013 in New York. (Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)
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- A performer passes a snake through his nose and mouth during a show at a fair as part of lunar new year festivities at the Temple of Earth park in Beijing on February 11, 2013. A billion-plus Asians are ushering in the lunar Year of the Snake with a week of festivities. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)
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- Malian people stand by the remain of a suicide bomber who blew himself up the day before in front of a police station in the northern Mali’s largest city of Gao, on February 11, 2013. France bombed an Islamist hideout today in Gao, where troops rattled by guerrilla attacks intensified a security lock-down as the French-led campaign against the extremists entered its second month. (Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images)
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- People cram into a sauna during the European Sauna Marathon in Otepaa February 10, 2013. More than 600 participants took part in the event by visiting 20 saunas with a total distance of over 62 miles. Picture taken February 10, 2013. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)
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- A man walks to the sauna during the European Sauna Marathon in Otepaa February 10, 2013. More than 600 participants took part in the event by visiting 20 saunas with a total distance of over 100 km (62 miles). Picture taken February 10, 2013. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)
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- Participants relax after a sauna bath during the European Sauna Marathon in Otepaa, February 10, 2013. More than 600 participants took part in the event by visiting 20 saunas with a total distance of over 62 miles. Picture taken February 10, 2013. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)
Pope’s sudden resignation sends shockwaves through Church
Philip Pullella | Reuters
2:02 p.m. EST, February 11, 2013
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict stunned the Roman Catholic Church including his closest advisers on Monday when he announced he would stand down in the first papal abdication in 700 years, saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to run the Church through a period of major crisis.
Church officials tried to relay a climate of calm confidence in the running of a 2,000-year-old institution but the decision could lead to one of the most uncertain and unstable periods in centuries for a Church besieged by scandal and defections.
Several popes in the past, including Benedict’s predecessor John Paul, refrained from stepping down even when severely ill, precisely because of the confusion and division that could be caused by having an “ex-pope” and a reigning pope living at the same time.
This could create a particularly difficult problem if the next pope is a progressive who influences such teachings as the ban on women priests and artificial birth control and its insistence on a celibate priesthood.
The Church has been rocked during Benedict’s nearly eight-year papacy by child sexual abuse crises and Muslim anger after the pope compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier and there was scandal over the leaking of the pope’s private papers by his personal butler.
In an announcement read to cardinals in Latin, the universal language of the Church, the 85-year-old said: “Well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St Peter …
“As from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours (1900 GMT) the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”
POPE DOESN’T FEAR SCHISM
At a news conference, chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope did not fear a possible “schism” in the Church, with Catholics owing allegiances to a past and present pope in case of differences on Church teachings.
The pope, known for his conservative doctrine, stepped up the Church’s opposition to gay marriage, underscored the Church’s resistance to a female priesthood and to embryonic stem cell research.
But Lombardi said Benedict, who is expected to go into isolation for at least a while after his resignation, did not intend to influence the decision of the cardinals who will enter a secret conclave to elect a successor.
A new leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics could be elected as soon as Palm Sunday, on March 24, and be ready to take over by Easter a week later, Lombardi said.
He indicated the complex machinery of the process to elect a new pope would move quickly because the Vatican would not have to wait until after the elaborate funeral services for a pope.
The decision shocked many throughout the world, from ordinary believers, to politicians to world religious leaders.
“This is disconcerting, he is leaving his flock,” said Alessandra Mussolini, a parliamentarian who is granddaughter of Italy’s wartime dictator.
“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.”
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