Benedict, Farewell Trivia Quiz

Answer: lacked the strength to continue

In his address to the Cardinals on 10 February 2013, Pope Benedict stated: "After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry."

He also stated that to serve the Church, "...both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me...". He set a retirement date of 8pm, 28 February 2013.

Although, beginning in the 1990s, the Catholic Church had been scandalized by revelations of child abuse perpetrated by clergymen, this was not cited as a reason for Benedict's retirement.

Answer: 85

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was born in 16 April 1927 in Marktl-am-Inn, Bavaria, Germany. He was ordained in 1951, at age 24. After teaching at the University of Bonn, he became Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 and Cardinal in 1993. From 1981 to 2005 he was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- also known as the Roman Inquisition (not to be confused with the Spanish Inquisition, which nobody expects).

He retired first to the Castel Candolof, and then, once renovations were complete, to the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the northern section of the Vatican Gardens.

Answer: eight years

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger began his papacy as Benedict XVI on 19 April 2005. He announced his retirement in February 2013, making it a little less than eight years.

He was the first German pope in hundreds of years, and the ninth German pope since the founding of the Church. The last German pontiff before him was actually a Dutch-German, Adriaan Florenzsoon Boyens (1459-1523) of Utrecht, who served as Pope Adrian VI from 1522 to 1523.

By the way, there were two thirty-three days' pontiffs. The first was Benedict V, who was consecrated by the Romans in defiance of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, who had instilled Leo VIII. Otto retaliated and captured and exiled Benedict in A.D. 964. The other was John Paul I, who was elected Pope and then died quite suddenly in 1978.

Answer: False

Quite the opposite. According to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, the Pope had come to the decision only recently, and he had surprised even his closest aides. It was assumed that he would push on despite the infirmities of old age, much as his predecessor, John Paul II, had done.

Even the help were astonished. As a janitor in a nuns' residence at the Vatican, Simonetta Piersanti, put it: "Anyone could tell that he was old and sick, and that such a complicated situation like the one he has to face is a lot, but I had never heard that a pope could quit." [*]

[*] In Rachel Donadio & Nicholas Kulish, "A Statement Rocks Rome, Then Sends Shockwaves Around the World", 'New York Times', 11 February 2013.

Answer: Gregory XII in 1415

Pope Benedict XVI was the first pope in six centuries to resign!

Gregory XII was forced out due to the Great Western Schism which nearly destroyed Roman Catholicism in the 15th century. Two Anti-Popes had declared themselves the true pope in Avignon and Pisa, respectively. As part of a settlement with the Council of Constance, Gregory abdicated in 1415 (and one of the Anti-Popes was excommunicated), and Martin V was elected Pope in 1417.

An earlier namesake, Benedict IX was twice deposed and restored, before he lost the papal throne one last time to Damasus II in 1048.

Pope Pius XII became the subject of controversy regarding his leadership during the Interwar Period and World War II, particularly the 1933 treaty between the Vatican and Germany, but he remained Pope until his death in 1958.

Valentine's papacy lasted a fleeting 40 days before he passed away in 827. (He is NOT the St. Valentine after whom Valentine's Day is named.)

Answer: St Celestine V in 1294

Pietro Angelerio, also known as Peter of Morrone, became Pope Celestine V in July 1294. Rather a hermit, and never wanting election in the first place, he decreed in December that a Pope may resign, and then he promptly did so. He retired to a castle for the rest of his short life; some historians believe he was imprisoned out of fear that he might be installed as an Anti-Pope.

Although news media at the time of Benedict's announcement were comparing Benedict XVI's resignation to that of Gregory XII, in fact Gregory's resignation was part of a settlement during a time of great conflict and the existence of pretenders to the throne, if you will. Benedict's case more closely resembles Celestine V's.

As for the other choices...
St Gregory I, better known as Gregory the Great, was a prolific writer, and he has traditionally been attributed with developing the Western plainchant used in medieval worship (Gregorian chant), although this may be apocryphal.

St John XXIII introduced sweeping reform into the Catholic Church by calling the Second Vatican Council in 1962. Alas, he died in 1963, two years before its completion. Pope Francis canonized him in 2014, and his feast day is on October 11, the anniversary of the start of Vatican II.

St Peter remained Bishop of Rome and head of the early Christian Church until his death. In the words of Jesus Himself, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." -- Matthew 16:18-19 (NRSV)

Answer: False

It would be a mistake to think that Pope Benedict XVI was a promoter of all of the reforms wrought by the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, or that he was anything but a conservative European scholar. Although Benedict XVI began his ecclesiastical career as a liberal theologian, he became quite conservative by the time he was made Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977. In the 1980s he actively worked to quell liberation theology, an interpretation of Christian teachings, arising among Roman Catholics in Latin America, that emphasizes liberating the poor and marginalized from social injustice and structural economic inequalities.

Among Benedict's beliefs, he opposed the acceptance of homosexuality, the ordination of women as priests and deacons, and the legalization of stem-cell research. He also resurrected the Tridentine Mass (or Latin Mass), which had been the Roman Rite Mass used since 1570, until the Pauline Mass (the Mass of Paul VI) replaced it in 1969. (The Pauline Mass remained the Mass in ordinary form, and the Tridentine Mass became a Mass in extraordinary form.)

Answer: False

Resignation may violate tradition but it does not violate Church law, as St. Celestine V settled the matter by papal decree in 1294. And the world is, of course, not as it was in the Middle Ages, so such sudden changes do not produce the same destabilizing effects as they once did.

To fill the political vacuum, the Holy See simply did what it does in the event of a pope's death: a regency of cardinals administered the Holy See sede vacante (as the empty post is called), and a conclave of cardinals was convened to elect a new pope. Historian Alex Lee stated in 'The Telegraph',"the papacy is, for the first time in its history, well-supported by a smoothly-functioning Curia, and grounded in a sense of electoral authority that has finally overcome the instabilities of the past."

While at times in the second millennium A.D. there were conflicts over who was Pope (and indeed Anti-Popes established who claimed to be the true Pope), by the turn of the third millennium there was only one indisputable Pontiff. (This is not to say that the former Pope would never have a degree of influence, much as a former President or other temporal leader would).

Answer: Pope Emeritus

Benedict XVI did not revert to his pre-papal title of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (sometimes styled as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), but instead kept his pontifical name. He continued to be addressed as "His Holiness", as one addresses the Pope. However, he was no longer "The Pope" or the Bishop of Rome, but Pope Emeritus, Emeritus Pope, or (Roman) Pontifex Emeritus. Furthermore, he lost the symbols of papal power. The Swiss Guard ceased to protect him, he traded his red shoes for brown, and his signet ring, the Fisherman's Ring[*], used for sealing documents, was smashed, just as when a reigning pope dies. Additionally, the Roman Curia, or the Papal Court (in the sense of "royal court"), resigned.

[*]It is called the Fisherman's Ring because the first Pope, St. Peter, was a fisherman when Christ called him to be a disciple. "As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." -- Matthew 4:18-19 (NAB)

Answer: No

This is wrong for two reasons. Firstly, there was no case pending at the time. Two U.S. advocacy groups, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The ICC, however, had not taken up the complaint at the time of the Pope's abdication.

Secondly, the Pope is not only head of the Catholic Church but also the Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, which provides certain benefits under international law. So long as Joseph Ratzinger remained Pope Benedict XVI, he was protected by diplomatic immunity from prosecution. Upon his resignation, however, that immunity expired.