"So The Pope's Resigning" or "First Pope To Step Down In About 400 Years"
 

Both entirely plausible, but I imagine the second one is more likely as well. And I for one, will NOT miss him.

Ever since the first sermon of the previous year that he devoted to the theme of "traditional family values" AKA converting/rejecting non-hetrosexuals couples (as opposed to respecting all humane walks of life), I felt little respect for him.

We can only hope his successor has better things in mind than dogma.

Didn't they appoint him because they were still searching for a more suitable Pope, and were expecting that a near-octogenarian Pope would die in short order anyway?

I mean he's not dead but mission accomplished all the same?

Pyros is okay with Pope, He is cool dude. I'm glad he gets the chance to step out of the limelight and live out the rest of his days as a man, and not a figurehead/voicebox.

Bit weird to see two popes in my lifetime before I turn middle aged, maybe.

Just wait until we hit doomsday, and in the middle of all of the international storm of raging bullshit the Vatican will split into factions with their own Popes. They will start wars just to get the remaining Pope hats, it'll look exactly like TF2.

Serious note: It's good to see someone who steps down because they don't see themselves as the appropriate leader for their organization. We could have had a really shit Pope that just clung to the position, stagnating the whole setup for way too long.

It's good to see a little change, not to mention some humility and vulnerability, from the world's leading conservative force. It makes me hope the church can hurry up and get with the times a little faster. Like, last week it seemed like the 21st century would be over before they got through the 17th, but now I feel like they may join the 20th century any year now.

God who cares? The Pope doesn't actually DO anything. I mean come on.

I'm sure there are umpteen bajillion Catholics spread throughout the world, but its not like the Pope affects their property tax rates or anything. Its just going to be some old guy in a funny hat talking about stuff that has little to no bearing on modern life, in Latin no less!

Going to be honest, I don't want this organization to modernize and move into the 21st century, I want it to die on the doorstep of the 21st century like a bird someone's cat has left as a gift.

I don't think American Catholics care too much, but for much of the world's Catholics they really do care about what he says they can or can't do in their lives. Like hardcore.

That said, this pope was probably a slightly more progressive pope than his predecessors (I mean, in probably the most conservative way possible).

Yeah there is zero percent of me that is remotely disappointed in this. This guy was a dick.