The Washington Times

Precedents for papal resignations

The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Benedict XVI will step down on Feb. 28. While such papal resignations are extremely rare, there are precedents in the two-millennia history of the Roman Catholic Church:

Marcellinus abdicated or was deposed in 304 after complying with the Roman emperor’s order to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods.

Benedict IX sold the papacy to his godfather, Gregory VI, and resigned in 1045.

Celestine V, overwhelmed by the demands of the office, stepped down after five months as pope in 1294. Pope Benedict XVI prayed at the tomb of this hermetic pontiff in the central Italian city of L’Aquila in 2009.

Gregory XII, the last pope to resign, stepped down in 1415 to help end a church schism.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Comments
blog comments powered by Disqus
You Might Also Like
  • Illegal immigrants easily step over a fallen barbed-wire fence between Mexico and the United States near the town of Sasabe, Mexico, in 2004. The number of apprehensions of illegal border-crossers is down while the number of deaths in the desert is high. (Associated Press)

    Non-deportation rate drops — to 99.2 percent

  • ** FILE ** Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)

    Cuccinelli accepts Va. GOP gubernatorial nomination

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, May 17, 2013, before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the extra scrutiny the IRS gave Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

    Treasury officials told of IRS probe in June 2012

      • Independent voices from the TWT Communities

        Rest Insured

        Nobody likes to talk about dying quite as much as life insurance expert Liran Hirshkorn.

        Spill It! How to Maintain and Repair Your MacBook

        The stories of damaged Mac Books that had liquid spilled on them and how they were brought back to life by the Mac Experts at LiquidSpill.com

        Wells on Music

        Viewing and reviewing the Los Angeles experimental and classic punk scene with a nod to Rodney's English Disco