As of Today
The German Roman Catholic pontiff, who was born Joseph Ratzinger, and will continue to be
known as Benedict XVI,
with the new title of "pope emeritus",
will wear a simple white cassock rather than his
papal clothes,
and swap his famous red shoes for brown.
Castle Gandolpho
The traditional lakeside summer home of the popes is a
picturesque "castle town" in the Alban hills, 15 miles (24km) south-east
of Rome. The papal palace dates back to the 17th Century and its gardens occupy the site of a residence of the Roman Emperor Domitian Benedict XIV.
Benedict will be flown here this afternoon, and remain in residence as his successor at the Vatican is chosen and installed. He will have a staff of two secretaries and four women helpers,
drawn from a Catholic lay organization.
Vatican police officers will guard the former pope, who loses his Swiss Guards when his resignation takes effect.
And then?
After two months, giving workmen and renovators
time to prepare a former nunnery in the grounds of the Vatican, he is
expected to live out the rest of his life there, with his housekeepers, his private
secretary, and his beloved cats.
2 comments:
while reading the NYT article about
his departure in the helicopter, i
suddenly had a sense of clarity
of Wonder...what would it be like
to be the
Pope.
it was only for a milisecond, but
something cracked and i had some
kind of sense of something that
i can not recreate in the slightest.
the Pope. a position amoung human
kind created by other humans. lasting this long and now maybe
about to change.
...what would it be like to be the Pope? Can't tell you how glad I am I never had the option--nor the Karma! It's a big deal all right....and there's a lot more big deals coming down the pike since the wiki leaks of secret Vatican documents revealed a known pedophilia association of cardinals and, abd the Vatican banking scandal has yet to unravel completely. The whole world is at war with world establishments. Oh, Grace, aren't we fortunate to be as insignificant as we are.
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