Pope Says He Would Resign If His Health Condition Impeded Him To Execute Office
The Pope Benedict XVI shocks the entire Roman Catholic world as he declares that if his health condition deteriorates, he will not hesitate to relinquish his position and let someone else be the pope of the Catholic church.
The 83-year-old pope made this confession in a book of interviews that is about to be released on Wednesday called Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signals of the World . Excerpts of the book have been published over the weekend in the L’Osservatore Romano.
The pope confessed that he would not hesitate to relinquish position if he were to find himself in the situation of not being “physically, psychologically, and spiritually” up to it.
This would be highly unprecedented since the popes are expected to execute their office for life.
The last pope to resign was Celestine V in 1294. The pope says in the book that if a pope doesn’t feel up to continue his mission, he can choose to resign, and, under some circumstances, he has an obligation to do so.
In spite of his age, it would seem Pope Benedict XVI is enjoying a good health, even though he suffered some little accidents lately.
However, he complains that the execution of the job can be exhausting for someone at his age, who has to receive very 
many people, to travel overseas, to perform the most important Catholic religious services.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that in 1989 the late pope John Paul II had signed a document by which he promised to resign in case he became incurably ill.
The document remained classified, although he became ill, and the pope continued his job until 2005 when he died.
Over the weekend, Benedict XVI created 24 more cardinals, 10 of them being Italian, which fuels the rumors that the next pope could be Italian.
The most suitable Italian contenders would be: Dionigi Tettamanzi, Archbishop of Milan; Gianfranco Ravasi, president of pontifical council for culture; Angelo Bognasco, leader of Italian Bishops’ Conference.
