The scandal-plagued pope does the unthinkable. It's the best choice he's ever made for the Church

[DonViejo]

POPE BENEDICT: PEACE OUT!

Pope Benedict XVI hands over “keys to heaven”

The scandal-plagued pope does the unthinkable. And it's the best choice he's ever made for the Church

MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

When your job is defined as “person who holds the keys to heaven, keys passed down to you directly from Jesus himself,” that’s not the sort of thing a man usually walks away from. But on Monday, Pope Benedict made the stunning announcement that he’s giving the world’s roughly 1.2 billion Catholics his two weeks’ notice, and stepping down at the end of the month, presumably to move to Boca and work on his golf swing.

The papacy, much like the mob, is not a job one generally can just up and quit. The former Joseph Alois Ratzinger is going old school, doing something that hasn’t been done since Gregory XII in 1415.

Benedict’s bombshell leaves a host of as-yet-unanswered questions. As James Poniewozik asked on Monday, will the first pontiff on Twitter have to give up his handle, or will his successor have to be “like RealPontifex53″? Does he get to keep his brand-new Mercedes-Benz popemobile? Is he going to show up just to “hang out” at the Vatican at awkward times, like the guy from high school who just can’t detach? But the biggest question is a simple one: Why a man would bail on a job he and his colleagues believe the Holy Spirit wanted him to have.

There are already, in these early moments after the announcement, the inevitable conspiracy theories floating about that there must be a scandal of epic proportions about to blow up. More than any other modern papacy, Benedict’s has been marked by a continuous onslaught of controversy. Just days ago, 12,000 pages of court records emerged regarding sexual abuse by Catholic priests – and the calculated efforts of Church authorities to cover it up. Last month, bishops in Germany abruptly pulled an independent investigation into sex abuse there. In recent months, as sweeping reforms for LGBT men and women around the world have ushered in a new era of tolerance and civil rights, the Church has doubled down on its stance against “all forms of weakening” traditional man-lady relationships. Did we mention the money-laundering scandals? And throughout it all, the one man at the top of the chain of command has yet to emerge as anything less than competent at best and downright duplicitous at worst.

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http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/pope_benedict_xvi_forks_over_the_keys_to_heaven/

[Drale]

1. I don't think the Cardinals expected him to live this long

They elected him hoping he'd be pope for 5 years max and they would have more time to figure out who would be the best person to be the next pope.

[NightWatcher]

2. "Keys to heaven", who locked the door?

If he wanted to do something good, he should've opened the doors of the Vatican for the sunlight to come in. He'd admit past wrongdoings and allow outsiders to look inside.

[Kalidurga]

3. Documents are already shredded.

Hopefully he forgot something.