Photos: Pope Benedict XVI says he will resign

Posted Feb 11, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI says he will resign Feb. 28, because he was simply too infirm to carry on — 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 85-year-old pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals on Monday morning.(AP)

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Pope Benedict XVI delivers his blessing as he leaves after celebrating a mass for priests and nuns in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)
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FILE - In this Dec. 12, 1985 file photo, Joseph Ratzinger presents a book with the documents issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, during a press conference at the Vatican, when he was Head of the Congregation. The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted defrocking a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter obtained by the Associated Press bearing his signature. (AP Photo/Bruno Mosconi)
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In this Monday, March 16, 1987 photo, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, appears at the Foreign Press Club in Rome. The Vatican has been on the defensive in recent days as criticism over the handling of some of the abuse probes in the United States and in Pope Benedict XVI's German homeland have threatened to engulf the papacy. Benedict, in his previous role as a Vatican-based Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, directed the Holy See office that deals with sex allegations. (AP Photo/Giulio Broglio)
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** FILE ** German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger holds the Karl Valentin award with both hands. This carnival award was presented to him in Munich by the 'Narhalla' carnival group January 4, 1989 for his delicate humor in speeches and sermons. Pope Benedict XVI celebrates his 80th birthday on April 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Arne Dedert)
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** RETRANSMISSION TO CORRECT SPELLING OF BENEDICT ** ** FILE ** Card. Joseph Ratzinger, who became the new Pope at the Vatican Tuesday April 19, 2005, is seen under the Vatican coat-of-arms, as he addresses a news conference in which the Vatican rejects the notion that all religions are equal, in this Sept. 5, 2000 file photo. Ratzinger will be Pope Benedict XVI. (AP Photo)
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Georg Ratzinger, center, the brother of Pope Benedict XVI, is aided as he takes a seat prior to the installment Mass of of Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2005. Dignitaries and an estimated 500,000 pilgrims, many of them from the pontiff's native Germany, arrived in Rome for the ceremony to formally install Pope Benedict XVI and offer the pontiff a major chance to set the tone for his papacy. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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Georg Ratzinger, center, the brother of Pope Benedict XVI, is aided as he takes a seat prior to the installment Mass of of Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2005. Dignitaries and an estimated 500,000 pilgrims, many of them from the pontiff's native Germany, arrived in Rome for the ceremony to formally install Pope Benedict XVI and offer the pontiff a major chance to set the tone for his papacy. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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Pope Benedict XVI celebrates his installation Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2005. An estimated 500,000 pilgrims arrived in Rome for the ceremony to formally install Pope Benedict XVI and offer the pontiff a major chance to set the tone for his papacy. On the table a copy of the gospel and the papal fisherman ring, traditional used along with dies, to make lead seals for apostolic letters. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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Archbishop Piero Marini drapes Pope Benedict XVI with the pallium during his installment Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2005. The pallium is a narrow shawl of white wool embroided with five silk crosses whose red color symbolizes the blood of Christ. A pin pierces three of the crosses, to symbolize the nails driven into Christ on the cross. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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Pope Benedict XVI greets the crowd after celebrating his installation Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 24, 2005. An estimated 500,000 pilgrims arrived in Rome for the ceremony to formally install Pope Benedict XVI and offer the pontiff a major chance to set the tone for his papacy. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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** FILE ** Pope Benedict XVI walks down the steps during his installment Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, in this Sunday, April 24, 2005 file photo. At right, Bishop Piero Marini. Used to the stern portrayal of the German theologian as guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, a job he held for twenty three years until his election as pope April 19th, many are surprised by the warm and smiling Benedict. Far from a dour professor, the new pope rides standing and waving in open vehicles, willingly has his picture taken doning a Hawaiin lai or a fire-fighter helmet, and at a recent public appearance spoke to an apparently terminally ill nun on a cell phone handed to him by a man in a wheel chair. (AP Photo/Jasper Juinen)
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German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger celebrates Mass on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his priest ordination in the cathedral of Munich, southern Germany, in this July 8, 2001 file photo. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a longtime guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, was elected the new pope Tuesday, April 19, 2005 evening in the first conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI. (AP Photo/Diether Endlicher)
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Pope Benedict XVI is welcomed by faithful during a visit to the Padre Pio's shrine in San Giovanni Rotondo, southern Italy, Sunday, June 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Donato Fasano)
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King Abdullah II of Jordan, left, and Pope Benedict XVI, right, reviews guards of honor on pope's arrival in Amman, Jordan Friday, May 8, 2009.Pope Benedict XVI began a week long tour in the Middle East, that includes Jordan and Israel, and the Palestinian territories. In his first visit as pope to an Arab country, Benedict will meet with Muslim religious leaders at Amman's largest mosque.(AP Photo/Nader Daoud)
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** FILE ** Italian Monsignor Angelo Bagnasco, then Archbishop of Pesaro, right, receives the Pallium from Pope John Paul II during an ancient rite celebrated by the pontiff in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, in this Thursday, June 29, 2000 file photo. Pope Benedict XVI named Bagnasco new Archbishop of Genoa Tuesday Aug. 29, 2006 to replace Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a longtime aide to the pontiff who was appointed as the Vatican secretary of state. The Vatican named Monsignor Angelo Bagnasco, who until now served as the Holy See's chaplain to Italy's armed forces military for Italy, to lead the archdiocese in the northern Italian port city (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
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Pope Benedict XVI gestures as he sits in his popemobile, leaving after a visit to the French Institute in Paris, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008. Pope Benedict was to celebrate later an outdoor Mass in Paris, his only public appearance Saturday before he flies to Lourdes to make a pilgrimage to the shrine which draws millions of pilgrims each year. The French Institute is a French learned society, grouping five academies, the most famous of which is the Academie Francaise. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, pool)
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Bishop Bernard Fellay, greets followers of the schismatic Lefebvrian Church during a procession under the trees of a dusty hilltop in Rome in this Aug. 9, 2000 photo. Monsignor Bernard Fellay, secretary general of the Society of St. Pius X, the ultraconservative movement founded by the excommunicated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, met with Pope Benedict XVI, Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. Lefebvre founded the Switzerland-based society in 1969, which opposed the liberalizing reforms of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, particularly its call for Mass to be celebrated in local languages and not the traditional Latin. He was excommunicated in 1988 after consecrating four bishops without Rome's consent. All four bishops, including Fellay, were also excommunicated. (AP Photo/Claudia Gazzini)
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** FILE ** P German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger with brass band "Strigl" in front of a new fire brigade car that was previously blessed by Ratzinger in this 2002 file photo in Pentling near Regensburg, southern Germany. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a longtime guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, was elected the new pope Tuesday, April 19, 2005 in the first conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI. (AP Photo/Joseph Eder)
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Pope Benedict XVI blesses the crowd from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Tuesday, April 19, 2005. Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, who chose the name of Pope Benedict XVI, is the 265th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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Pope Benedict XVI greets the faithful from the balcony of the house of the Bishop of Kracow, in Kracow, Poland, Friday, May 26, 2006. Pope Benedict XVI encouraged prayers Friday for the beatification of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II _ an eagerly awaited remark during his visit to Poland on a cause close to the hearts of many Poles. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
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Pope Benedict XVI carries a candle in front of the death wall at the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland, Sunday, 28 May 2006, on his last day of a four-day trip in Poland. Sign on left reads "Stop" in German and Polish. The visit is fraught with significance for Catholic-Jewish relations, a favorite theme for Benedict and predecessor John Paul II. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, pool)
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** FIL E** Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, kisses the hand of Pope John Paul II during a Mass to elevate new Cardinals in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, in this Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2003 file photo. Pope Benedict XVI has decided to appoint Bertone as the Vatican's No. 2 official, Thursday June 22, 2006. As the Vatican's secretary of state, he would replace another Italian, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who has held the post for 15 years and at 78 is three years past the normal Vatican retirement age. (AP Photo)
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Pope Benedict XVI greets a child as he leaves the Virgin Mary of the Divine Love Sanctuary in Rome, Monday, May 1, 2006. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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** FILE ** Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, who became the new Pope at the Vatican Tuesday April 19, 2005, is seen in this Feb. 22, 2005 file photo with Pope John Paul II's book "Memory and Identity." Ratzinger will be Pope Benedict XVI. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
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** FILE ** Popes, who held office during the 20th Century, are shown in this combo from top left to bottom right; Leo XIII (Feb. 20, 1878-July 20, 1903); Pius X (Aug. 4, 1903-Aug. 20, 1914); Pius XI (Feb. 6, 1922-Feb. 10, 1939); Pius XII (March 2, 1939-Oct. 9, 1958); John XXIII (Oct. 28, 1958-June 3, 1963); Paul VI (June 21, 1963-Aug. 6, 1978); John Paul I (Aug. 26-Sept. 28, 1978); John Paul II (Oct. 16, 1978-April 2, 2005). EDS NOTE: Pope Benedict XV (Sept. 3, 1914-Jan. 22, 1922) is not shown in photo combo. (AP Photo/Files)
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Pope Benedict XVI arrives for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday Feb. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
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Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a mass for priests and nuns in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)
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Pope Benedict XVI, left, delivers his blessing, flanked by Grand Master of the Knights of Malta Matthew Festing, doing the sign of the cross, at the end of a mass celebrated by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, not pictured, to mark the 900th anniversary of the Order of the Knights of Malta in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013. The Knights of Malta, one of the most peculiar organizations in the world, is marking its 900th birthday with a colorful procession through St. Peter's Square, a Mass in the basilica and an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. The Knights are at once a Catholic religious order, an aid group that runs soup kitchens, hospitals and ambulance services around the globe, and a sovereign entity that prints its own passports and enjoys diplomatic relations with 104 countries — yet has no country to call its own. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
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German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, right, holds an unidentified document, as the mayor of the southern German town of Marktl, Hubert Gschwendtner looks on in Marktl, the hometown of Ratzinger, July 13, 1997. In background the honory citizen plaque at Ratingers birth place. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a longtime guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, was elected the new pope Tuesday, April 19, 2005 evening in the first conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI. (AP Photo/Gemeinde Marktl)
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In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI meets the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon and the Head of the Chaldean Catholic Church Louis Raphaël I Sako during a private audience at the Vatican Monday, Feb. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, ho)
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A seagull flies past Pope Benedict XVI delivering his blessing during the Angelus prayer he celebrated from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013 (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)