Pope Benedict Resigning

A surprise announcement by the Vatican today that Pope Benedict the 16th will be stepping down at the end of the month. The announcement says he’s resigning as of 7 PM on February 28th. He’ll be first to resign since Pope Gregory the 12th in the 1400’s.

Pope Benedict has been head of the Catholic Church for 7 years and at age 85  he says he no longer has the strength to continue.

There could be another side to the story.  The Church is struggling with a number of scandals including child sex abuse and mismanagement of its bank accounts. The Pope’s butler released some sensitive documents last year that embarrassed the Vatican and the Pope’s announcement might have something to do with that. His butler said he released the papers because he saw evil and corruption everywhere in the Church and that information was being hidden from the Pope.