Tagged: Pope Benedict XVI

  Just days after the Pope announced his resignation; we will talk about the priesthood with Garry Wills. Bestselling author of Papal Sin and Why I Am a Catholic?, Wills spent five years as a young man at a Jesuit seminary and nearly became a priest himself.

But after a lifetime of study and reflection, he now poses some challenging questions: Why do we need priests at all? Why did the priesthood arise in a religion that began without it and opposed it? Would Christianity be stronger without the priesthood, as it was at its outset?

His new book is Why Priests?: A Failed Tradition.

Pope Benedict XVI announced this morning that he would resign February 28. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March. The 85-year-old pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals, citing his failing health.

As to whether the announcement really did come as a surprise...

That is Thomas Groome, Professor of Theology and Religious Education at Boston College.

Dennis Poust agrees.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan says electing a new pope is all new to him since he's still learning what it means to be archbishop.

At a news conference Monday, Dolan quipped he was "still writing thank-you notes from when I was made a cardinal" last year.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would resign Feb. 28 — the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March.

The 85-year-old pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals on Monday morning.

He emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope — the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide — requires "both strength of mind and body."