In the following statement, made on Sunday 10 February 2013, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would resign the ministry of Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter (the Papacy) on 28 February 2013.
His successor will be elected at a Conclave of Cardinals, which will be held before mid-March.
Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. 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. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard
Statement on Indulgence
Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI
House of Representatives
12 February 2013
Speaker, on indulgence, as you would know, Australia's Catholics and their many friends received remarkable news overnight that His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI will resign in coming weeks.
You would have to have lived several hundred years to have heard news like that.
The Pope's announcement marks a genuinely historic moment which many Australian Catholics will greet with great emotion.
Many Australians saw Pope Benedict during his visit here for the Church’s World Youth Day in 2008, and I’m sure many members remember the scenes and the crowds on that visit.
Thousands of others travelled to Rome in 2010 to see him declare Mother Mary MacKillop as our nation’s first saint: Saint Mary of the Cross. And that was a time of jubilation across the nation.
They will miss him.
Australia's Catholic community has made an enormous contribution to our nation, in absolutely every field of life.
But our thoughts naturally turn to the contribution in school education, health care and relief for the most disadvantaged in our society.
I personally think of Mary MacKillop who, as the Pope put it when he was canonising her “attended the needs of each young person entrusted to her, without regard to station or wealth”.
I think too of my own Party: our historic achievements and enduring purpose are unimaginable without the influence of the Catholic tradition.
Since 2008 Australia has had an accredited Ambassador resident in the Vatican State, reflecting the importance of the many global issues in which the Catholic Church is so vitally engaged.
Whoever is elected to take Pope Benedict’s place, the Catholic Church will remain one of the most important human institutions, containing within it all the strengths and faults of its hundreds of millions of believers; one facing all the challenges of the modern world.
My thoughts today are with Australia’s Catholic community as they prepare for Ash Wednesday tomorrow and the season of Lent, and as they live through what is an historic coming few weeks.