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Pope Benedict XVI resigning on Feb. 28 due to age, health concerns

Cardinal Timothy Dolan today

Cardinal Timothy Dolan today (David McGlynn)

Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Timothy Dolan last February in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Timothy Dolan last February in Rome. (Splash News)

Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would resign Feb. 28 — the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March.

The announcement sets the stage for a conclave in March to elect a new leader for world’s 1 billion Catholics.

The 85-year-old pope announced the bombshell in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals, surprising even his closest collaborators, even though Benedict had made clear in the past he would step down if he became too old or infirm to do the job.

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Benedict called his choice “a decision of great importance for the life of the church.”

He emphasized that carrying out the duties of being pope — the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide — requires “both strength of mind and body.”

“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,” he told the cardinals. “I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only by 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 St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary — strengths 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.”

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan says he was as startled as the rest of the world about Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement that he will resign.

“I am as shocked and startled as you,” Dolan said today in a news conference.

Dolan said he was saying his morning prayers around 6 a.m. when he received the call confirming the news of the pope’s resignation.

“My affection and my admiration for him has skyrocketed. I always admired him as a scholar. Now my admiration is even higher because of his humility,” Dolan said.

“I don’t have any insider information but I would presume that his esteem for the office is so high that in all humility, he simply said ‘I can’t do it anymore.”

“I find myself eager for some news…and I find myself kind of somber,” Dolan said in an earlier interview on “Today.” “I love this pope. I mean every Catholic feels the pope is his father, we call him our holy father, the world looks to him with respect and affection. I sense a special bond with him. I mean, he’s the one that appointed to you all as Archbishop of New York. I’m wearing the ring he game me, the cross he gave me. So I feel a particular bond with him.”

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Dolan says the conclave to elect to a new pope would do well to look for the kinds of qualities Pope Benedict possessed: knowledge about the world, a theological depth, personal piety and linguistic talent.

Worshippers at New York’s St. Patrick Cathedral are among those surprised to hear that the pope plans to resign later this month.

They included a visiting Connecticut firefighter, Walter Jablonski. He saw the news online. Before that, he didn’t think a pope could resign.

Jablonski thinks Benedict XVI is a good pope. But he liked Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, even more.

He described John Paul as more a “people person.”

Another worshipper, Juan Carlos Lombera, says he viewed Benedict more as “a transition pope.” He said the 85-year-old pope was already old when he was elected at age 78.

President Obama said today in a statement, “On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Michelle and I warmly remember our meeting with the Holy Father in 2009, and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years.

“The Church plays a critical role in the United States and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.”

Vice President Joe Biden hailed Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement announcement, calling him a man of “great integrity.”

But first, Biden joked that he won’t be seeking to replace him.

“I am not running,” Biden said after hosting a gun violence summit here.

“I had a chance to meet with the Holy Father several months ago privately for an hour. And his decision reinforced for me that … this is a man of great integrity and looking out for what he believes is the best interest of our church. I admire him for it. I think it’s been 713 or so years since anyone has ever done that. I think he sets an incredibly high standard.”

Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Michigan said in a statement Monday that surprise was followed by “sadness, a sense of grief at losing his fatherly care for all us.” The leader of the Archdiocese of Detroit invited Catholics to pray for the pope and “guide him through what lies ahead.”

Vigneron said “we look to the future with confidence, that the Lord who has given us this great pope and loving father, will give us a new shepherd of equal merit.”

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.

The move sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn’t have to be observed.

There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner — the same situation when Benedict was elected pontiff in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II.

Bookmakers have been quick to offer odds on candidates to replace Pope Benedict XVI, with cardinals from Ghana, Nigeria and Canada among the early favorites.

Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson, Canada’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet and Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria lead in betting with Britain’s major bookmakers.

William Hill made Turkson — one of the highest-ranking African cardinals at the Vatican — its 3/1 favorite Monday, followed by Ouellet at 7/2 and Arinze at 4/1. Ladbrokes also had Turkson as favorite, followed by Arinze and Ouellet.

Ireland’s Paddy Power also offered short odds on the three, as well as long odds on unlikely candidates — including U2 singer Bono at 1,000/1. It also offered 1,000/1 odds on Father Dougal Maguire, the simpleminded fictional priest from 1990s U.K. sitcom “Father Ted.”

The Vatican stressed that no specific medical condition prompted Benedict’s decision, but in recent years, the pope has slowed down significantly, cutting back his foreign travel and limiting his audiences. He now goes to and from the altar in St. Peter’s Basilica on a moving platform, to spare him the long walk down the aisle. Occasionally he uses a cane.

His 89-year-old brother, Georg Ratzinger, said doctors had recently advised the pope not to take any more trans-Atlantic trips.

“His age is weighing on him,” Ratzinger told the dpa news agency. “At this age my brother wants more rest.”

Popes are allowed to resign; church law specifies only that the resignation be “freely made and properly manifested.” But only a handful have done it.

— Marcellinus: This early church pope 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, this hermetic pontiff stepped down after five months as pope in 1294. Pope Benedict XVI prayed at his tomb in the central Italian city of L’Aquila in 2009.

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

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When Benedict was elected at age 78, he was the oldest pope chosen in nearly 300 years. At the time, he has already been planning to retire as the Vatican’s chief orthodoxy watchdog to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria.

On Monday, Benedict said he would serve the church for the remainder of his days “through a life dedicated to prayer.” The Vatican said immediately after his resignation, Benedict would go to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer retreat south of Rome, and then would live in a cloistered monastery.

Contenders to be his successor include Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops.

Cardinal Dolan is considered to be a longshot. Although Dolan is popular and backs the pope’s conservative line, the general thinking is that the Catholic Church doesn’t need a pope from a “superpower.”

Mayor Bloomberg today called Dolan a “very competent, hard-working, honest person.”

“I don’t know what his career future is. I know we all wish [Pope Benedict XVII] the best, long life, relax and turning the job over to somebody else.”

Given half of the world’s Catholics live in the global south, there will once again be arguments for a pope to come from the developing world.

Cardinal Antonio Tagle, the archbishop of Manila, has impressed many Vatican watchers, but at 56 and having only been named a cardinal last year, he is considered too young.

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana is one of the highest-ranking African cardinals at the Vatican, currently heading the Vatican’s office for justice and peace, but he’s something of a wild card.

All cardinals under age 80 are allowed to vote in the conclave, the secret meeting held in the Sistine Chapel where cardinals cast ballots to elect a new pope. As per tradition, the ballots are burned after each voting round; black smoke that snakes out of the chimney means no pope has been chosen, while white smoke means a pope has been elected.

The pontiff had been due to attend World Youth Day in July in Rio de Janeiro; by then his successor will have been named and will presumably make the trip.

Benedict himself raised the possibility of resigning if he were simply too old or sick to continue on, when he was interviewed in 2010 for the book “Light of the World.”

“If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign,” Benedict said.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had an intimate view as Pope John Paul II, with whom he had worked closely for nearly a quarter-century, suffered through the debilitating end of his papacy.

The announcement took the Vatican — and the rest of the world — by surprise.

Several cardinals on Monday didn’t even understand what Benedict had said during the consistory, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman said. Others who did were stunned.

“All the cardinals remained shocked and were looking at each other,” said Monsignor Oscar Sanchez of Mexico who was in the room when Benedict made his announcement.

Benedict was born April 16, 1927 in Marktl Am Inn, in Bavaria, but his father, a policeman, moved frequently and the family left when he was 2.

In his memoirs, Benedict dealt what could have been a source of controversy had it been kept secret — that he was enlisted in the Nazi youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941, when membership was compulsory. He said he was soon let out because of his studies for the priesthood. Two years later he was drafted into a Nazi anti-aircraft unit as a helper. He deserted the German army in April 1945, the waning days of the war.

He called it prophetic that a German followed a Polish pope — with both men coming from such different sides of World War II.

Benedict was ordained, along with his brother, in 1951. After spending several years teaching theology in Germany, he was appointed bishop of Munich in 1977 and elevated to cardinal three months later by Pope Paul VI.

John Paul named him leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981 and he took up his post a year later. Following John Paul’s death in 2005, he was elected pope April 19 in one of the fastest conclaves in history, just about 24 hours after the voting began.