And it must have taken courage. There's been pious spin about a holy act of 'humility'. But one of Pope Benedict's predecessors, sprightly Leo XIII, who died 110 years ago, went on until he was 93. Benedict knew from the start, aged 76, that he would grow old in office.
We've heard about the so-called papal 'resignation' almost 600 years ago. But there wasn't one. There were three rival Popes back then, and one of them was a psychopath. They were sacked by a council of all the bishops and cardinals to get back to one Pope at a time. Since then, every Pope has died in office. A report Benedict himself commissioned into the state of the Curia (Catholic Church's internal bureaucracy) landed on his desk in January. It revealed that
'The Filth' - or more specifically, the paedophile priest scandal had entered the bureaucracy.He resigned in early February. That report was a final straw. The Filth has been corroding the soul of the Catholic Church for years, and the reason is the power-grabbing ineptitude and secrecy of the Curia - which failed to deal with the perpetrators. Now the Curia itself stands accused of being part of The Filth.
