Benedict XVI Resigns

The world has not been waiting breathlessly for my comments about the February 11th announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he would resign on February 28th, but, inasmuch as I've not put anything up for a while, here goes:

The end of John Paul II's life was alternately described as a pathetic old man clinging to life unaware that his time had passed or "a testament of faith".  The last being a statement of a Catholic nun.

I'm sure that in relevant religious communities "a testament of faith" is clear enough description by itself.  Not to me.  After web searches and reading descriptions of testaments of faith in several religions I sort of get it: it's the will of God and the individual will take the lumps because that's what God is dishing out.  The individual recognizes or accedes to God's will (as if there were a choice).

I decided many years ago that the simplest explanation for why bad things happen to good people is because that's the way it is.  It doesn't require anything divine.  It doesn't require a divine plan.  Stuff just happens: brakes fail, metal fatigues, someone goes postal.

Back to the pope.  For some reason I think of the two popes as JP2 and Benny.  (I think the "Benny" comes from a "Prairie Home Companion sketch in which Guy Noir, the private eye, guided the Pope around incognito.)

My guess that Benny saw how the organization lost direction under JP2's decline and wanted to avoid doing the same.

In my opinion the best joke about the Pope's resignation came from Father James Martin, cultural editor of the Jesuit magazine America: "Boy he's sure .. certainly has raised the bar when it comes to giving something up for Lent." (The official NPR transcript reads: "And my second response was, boy, he certainly has raised the bar when it comes to giving something up for Lent." ~http://www.npr.org/2013/02/16/172175231/how-will-catholics-react-to-popes-rare-retirement)