ot: 1 min of silence

[dogscoff]

They should have let him retire years ago. IMHO it's cruel to expect someone to continue working in that condition. I'm sure he'd have said it's what he wanted, but only because that's what was expected of him: If he'd had the option of retiring gracefully at the age of (say) 70 then I don't doubt he'd have taken it.

The idea of "Pope for life" was probably dreamed up in the middle ages when your average Pope could expect to die of assassination/ good living/ some nasty medieval disease long before reaching old age or infirmity. Our (UK) royal family is facing a similar problem brought on by the same cause: Judging by the age the Queen Mum achieved before dying (about 110, I think), by the time Queen Liz dies, our Prince Charlie will probably be an octagenarian at least. He had his children comparatively late, but he can expect an even longer lifespan, due to improved medical science, so his son will also be old when he comes to the throne. Unless Charles passes the crown directly on and skips a generation (as I suspect he will) rather than take it for himself, we will never have a young monarch again. I'm not sure that it actually matters, mind you, but in these days when pontiffs and monarchs benefit from such a high level of medical care attention, life expectancies are too long for these "until death" roles to be viable.

I'm not a Catholic or a Christian so generally I don't really care what the vatican does or doesn't do as far as internal policy goes, but seeing that poor, ill old man struggle painfully to work through the years of his life that should have been given over to rest, recreation and reflection was just heartbreaking.

I'm not expecting Catholicism to drag itself out of the dark ages all at once, but I think they could at least offer the next Pope a retirement clause.