Pope Benedict XVI hands over “keys to heaven”

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:59:00 +0000

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.

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Pope Benedict XVI hands over “keys to heaven”