The Dialog

By Catholic News Service

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — If numbers were used to choose the next pope, he might come from Latin America.

Four in 10 Catholics live in Latin America, more than any other region, and it is home to the countries with the two largest Catholic populations, Brazil and Mexico, respectively.

Yet, few Latin Americans are betting that one of the region’s 19 cardinals will replace Pope Benedict XVI in March when the papal conclave convenes. And few seem to mind.

Latin American Catholic leaders, scholars, and laypeople told Catholic News Service that, more important than seeing one of their cardinals become pope, is having a pope that understands the region.

A woman prays after lighting a candle during an Ash Wednesday service at Our Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral in Tijuana, Mexico, Feb. 13. Many Latin Americans say that, more important than seeing one of their cardinals become pope, is having a pope that understands the region. (CNS photo/David Maung

Some expressed hope that the next pope would grant more autonomy to local churches and more widely recognize Latin America’s importance to the universal church — for both its size and for its contributions to church doctrine. Their sentiments reflected a sense of detachment from the Vatican, perceived as being Eurocentric and often out of touch with social issues that continue to trouble the region.

“Independently of where the pope comes from, he will be the pope for all if he is able to understand the concerns of Latin America,” said Father Roger Araujo, a priest in Lorena, Brazil.

“The people of Brazil hope the pope will understand the yearnings of the modern world,” he said.

Across the region, Catholics are looking for a leader they can connect with in more meaningful ways.

“What Latin Americans seek is a pope who is more present, a warmer church,” said Osvaldo Luiz, a former seminarian and now editor Cancao Nova magazine, a monthly publication in Brazil.

Bishop Raul Vera Lopez of Saltillo, Mexico, told Catholic News Service the next pope should be a person with a vision and knowledge for the church as a whole, along with the problems facing all parts of the world.

He suggested the Vatican should “look to strengthen local churches.”

Bishop Vera Lopez discarded the suggestion of a crisis in the region. The church “had a very good application of what is contained in the Second Vatican Council,” he said.

Pope Benedict’s announcement of his resignation led to speculation that the next pope could come from Africa or Latin America, regions that make up the majority of church rolls, but that have proportionally little representation in Rome.

“It could be time for a black pope, a yellow pope, a red pope or, also, a Latin American pope,” Guatemala City Archbishop Oscar Vian Morales quipped to local reporters after the pope’s resignation was announced. “It could be time for a pope from another continent.’

The region presents a complicated picture for the church. Despite boasting around 432 million Catholics, Latin America is seeing adherents flee the church. In former strongholds like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Central America, millions have left in favor of growing evangelical Protestant denominations or secularism. Poverty, while lessening, still plagues growing cities and urban populations. Youth are increasingly skeptical of the church and its messages.

Evelyn Gonzalez was raised Catholic but left because she disagreed with the church on issues such as condoms and abortion. She described herself as unchurched.

“I felt like I wasn’t being honest because there were things that I didn’t agree with that they were saying. But I kept going to church, I suppose because I was so accustomed to it,” Gonzalez said in an interview in downtown Santo Domingo, not far from Latin America’s oldest Catholic cathedral.

Reaching people like Gonzalez should be a priority, Catholic leaders said, even if there is disagreement on how to do so.

Some interviewed by Catholic News Service said they saw little need for the next pope to change the church’s approach to Latin America.

Vanessa Ozelin of the Pantokrator Catholic Community, a lay association founded in 1990 in Sao Paulo, said she would like to see the next pope continue the work of Pope Benedict.

“We hope the church continues with the same teachings and direction seen with Benedict XVI,” Ozelin said. “He is an inspiration to all of us.”

Others interviewed suggested providing a greater role for laypeople.

“The future of the church is in the hands of laypeople, particularly lay women,” said Father Pablo Richard, a Chilean theologian who heads a think tank San Jose, Costa Rica.

One of those women, Wilma Izzo, president of the Legion of Mary in Jundiai, Brazil, said it is important that the next pope focus on young people.

“I hope the new pope will work more with the youth, render them more attention,” she said. “Some of them are very lost, they don’t even know who God is. The new pontiff should encourage these youths to find out more about God and his teachings.’

Some observers have said Pope Benedict, who visited Latin America a year ago, failed to connect with people in the region the way his predecessor, Blessed John Paul II did. He did win over many, however, in part, by his special gestures such as donning a mariachi sombrero and speaking briefly in Spanish, said Bernardo Barranco, a newspaper columnist who follows the church.

Mexicans “want to be loved, spoiled, taken into account,’ Barranco said.

But neither pope did much to close the distance Latin Americans feel from the Catholic hierarchy, said Jose Maria Poirier, director of Criterio, a Catholic magazine in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

‘The central church, the curia, is still very Eurocentric. That became more firmly entrenched during the last two papacies,” he said.

Through the work of agencies like Caritas, the church plays an important role in Argentina, but ordinary people do not feel particularly close to the Vatican, he said.

“We have bishops (in Latin America) who are very close to Rome and who tend not to take an independent stance” or disagree with the Vatican, said Jesuit Father Antonio Delfau, editor of Mensaje, a Catholic magazine in Santiago, Chile.

The South American nation has seen percentage of people identifying themselves as Catholics fall from nearly 70 percent in 2002 to around 60 percent in 2012, according to preliminary census estimates. There, the church’s reputation has been damaged by recent sex scandals.

Similarly, decreases have been recorded in Catholic strongholds Mexico and Brazil. Today, 73 percent of Latin America is Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.

By Catholic News Service

ROME — After Pope Benedict XVI left the Vatican and began the last hours of his papacy, Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago told reporters he already was considering the qualities of certain cardinals and what kinds of pope they would make.

“I would imagine each of us has some kind of a list of primary candidates and other secondary and tertiary,” the cardinal told reporters in Rome Feb. 28 as he and fellow U.S. Cardinals Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston met the press.

Because Pope Benedict had announced his intention to resign Feb. 11, Cardinal George said, the cardinals already had begun thinking of individuals they consider good candidates.

“There’s a likely list at this point, it isn’t winnowed yet, of people who might be considered candidates,” he said.

In addition to the general meetings of the cardinals where the needs of the church are discussed, Cardinal George, who participated in the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict, said there are “smaller, more intimate conversations” where the cardinals ask each other about specific cardinals they know or want to know more about.

He said they ask questions like, “What do you know about this candidate? And could you tell me how he would react to this? And what sort of person is he, what’s his personality?”

Cardinal George said the cardinals being named possible candidates in the news, “all of them that I’ve seen, unlike last time, are, in fact, good candidates.”

Asked whether Pope Benedict’s resignation at 85 would cause the cardinals to look for younger, healthier popes than they may have in the past, Cardinal O’Malley said, “I think it’s a little early to say what the long-term effect is going to be.”

He said the conclave could elect “an older man, realizing that he’s not going to have to carry on this burden into his 90s” because it would be easier to resign now that Pope Benedict has.

“Certainly, it’s a whole new ballgame after this resignation,” the Boston cardinal said.

The papacy is “an extremely demanding job,” he said, so it also “could result in the conclave choosing a younger man.”

Cardinal DiNardo said the cardinals are just coming to grips with the idea that a pope actually could resign, even though it always has been a possibility according to canon law.

At the same time, he said, the cardinals are not in the kind of rush news outlets are in and “it worries me intensely that people are making all kinds of judgments already when we’re really only at the beginning of this. I think we need to be patient. The church is patient.”

Cardinal George said the question on his mind and probably the minds of most other cardinal-electors is who would be best suited for the papacy.

“The question of where he might be from or even his age follows after that, it’s secondary, not determinative,” he said.

As for how Pope Benedict’s resignation might change people’s understanding of the papacy, Cardinal George said it is too early to know.

In a family, the father is still the father even when he is old or ailing, he said.

“Function doesn’t count in a family, relationships do,” he said. “And the church is a family, the family of God.”

Whether a person can function in the office of pope “now becomes a more important question than it was before,” he said, although it remains to be seen if that question will have a lasting impact on people’s understanding of the papacy.

Contributing to this story were Francis X. Rocca and Cindy Wooden in Rome.

By Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — After Pope Benedict XVI officially became pope emeritus, he ate dinner, watched the television news and strolled through the lake-view rooms of the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said he spoke March 1 with Archbishop Georg Ganswein, the retired pope’s secretary, who said the mood in the villa after the pontificate ended was “relaxed” and his boss slept well.

Vatican workers seal the doors leading to the pope’s private apartment in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican Feb. 28. Pope Benedict XVI ended his reign pledging unconditional obedience to whoever is elected to succeed him. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

After watching two news programs, Pope Benedict expressed his gratitude to the media, because he said the coverage of his last day as pope helped people participate in the event, Father Lombardi said.

The papal secretary said Pope Benedict celebrated Mass at 7 a.m. March 1 as normal, read his breviary, had breakfast and then began reading more of the messages he had received in the last days of his pontificate. He expected to stroll through the villa gardens, praying his rosary, in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, back at the Vatican, officials from the College of Cardinals had a series of tasks to perform at the beginning of the “sede vacante,” the period when there is no pope.

The most symbolic tasks were carried out by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the camerlengo or chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, and his assistants. During the sede vacante, the chamberlain is charged with administering and safeguarding the temporal goods of the church.

Gathered with others in the offices of the “apostolic chamber,” Cardinal Bertone asked the time. At 8 p.m. exactly he was handed a “ferula,” a red velvet-covered scepter, as a sign of his authority. The cardinal led the staff in a brief prayer to God: “Give your church a pope acceptable to you.”

Carrying the ferula, he and his aides went into the private papal apartments. They made sure the door to the small private elevator was locked, then stretched tape across the elevator door and stamped it with seals.

Withdrawing from the apartment, they dead-bolted the main door with a large key, then strung a red ribbon through the handles. An aide, using a glue gun, sealed the ribbon’s knot.

The next day, Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata, vice chamberlain, went to the seldom-used papal apartments at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the pope’s cathedral, and sealed those as well, Father Lombardi said.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, wrote almost immediately after 8 p.m. to Vatican nuncios and other diplomatic representatives around the world, officially informing them of the sede vacante.

In one of his first acts as dean March 1, Cardinal Sodano wrote to each of the world’s 207 cardinals, including those over age 80 and ineligible to vote in a conclave, notifying them of “the vacancy of the Apostolic See because of the renunciation presented on the part of Pope Benedict XVI.”

He also asked them to come to the Vatican to begin the pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, March 4 at 9:30 a.m.

The general congregations will continue until all the cardinal-electors, including those under 80, are present in Rome, “and then the College of Cardinals will decide the date to enter into conclave” to elect a pope, he said.

Asked whether Cardinal Sodano was saying that a conclave date would not be set until all the cardinal-electors were present or accounted for, Father Lombardi said the letter “does not have the weight of law,” but he expected the cardinals would not vote on a conclave date until most of them were present and had time to talk and meet formally.

By Joseph Ryan

Dialog editor

Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion rite in Dover gives ‘sense of vitality of the church’

Thirty-seven parishes of the 57 in the Diocese of Wilmington sent 253 people, candidates and catechumens, to Holy Cross Church in Dover Feb. 16 to mark their Lenten journey toward full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter.

Bishop Malooly welcomed the packed congregation by calling the annual rites “one of my favorite days of the year.” Read more »

By Carol Glatz

Catholic News Service

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — Pope Benedict XVI, who began his papacy describing himself as a “humble servant in the Lord’s vineyard,” described his retirement as a time of being a “simple pilgrim, who begins the last stage of his pilgrimage on this earth.”

Pope Benedict XVI turns away after making his final public appearance as pope in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Feb. 28. The pope blessed the people gathered in the town square after he arrived via helicopter from the Vatican. “I am a simple pilgrim who begins the last stage of his pilgrimage on this earth,” he told the crowd. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The 85-year-old pope arrived in Castel Gandolfo Feb. 28 about two-and-a-half hours before the end of his pontificate.

He planned to spend about two months at the papal villa south of Rome before moving into a former monastery in the Vatican Gardens.

The pope arrived in a helicopter from the Vatican and rode by car through the fields and formal gardens of the papal villa before reaching the residence.

Hours before he arrived, townspeople, pilgrims and visitors began filling the main square outside the papal residence. As they waited for the pope, they prayed the rosary.

As soon as he entered the residence, the pope went upstairs and, standing on the balcony overlooking the main square, he greeted the crowd.

“Dear friends, I am happy to be with you, surrounded by the beauty of creation and by your friendship, which does me such good,” he told them.

“You know that for me, today is different than the days that have gone before. You know that I am no longer supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church; until 8 o’clock I will be, but not after that.”

“I am a simple pilgrim who begins the last stage of his pilgrimage on this earth,” he told them. “But with all my heart, with all my love, with my prayers, with my reflection, with all my interior strength, I still want to work for the common good and the good of the church and humanity,” he told them.

Pope Benedict thanked the people for their support and asked them to continue to pray and work for the good of the church, too.

“With all my heart, I impart my blessing,” he told them, before giving a simple blessing, in Italian, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Enzo Romagnoli, who runs a deli near the papal villa, told Catholic News Service he was born during the pontificate of Pius XI. “Since then, I’ve seen all the popes here.”

“It both sad and beautiful” to have Pope Benedict in town as he retires, he said. “But we are honored to have him here.”

Romagnoli said when he travels and people ask him where he’s from, he responds “Castel Gandolfo,” and everyone knows where that is, which is an honor for such a small town.

Even half an hour after the pope had gone inside, a man dressed in a suit stood near the entrance to the villa with a sign, “Dear Pope, we are with you and we will miss you.”

Mauro Giovannucci, who runs a butcher shop in the main square, said: “This is a unique event, a new experience of enthusiasm and joy. When the pope is here, even the air is more pleasant.”

He prayed that God would help Pope Benedict; “We all love him.”

Just after the pope arrived, two Swiss Guards stood at the main doors of the residence and two more stood just inside. They were scheduled to close the doors at 8 p.m. and return to the Vatican, since their job is to guard the pope.

Their place was to be taken by Vatican police officers inside the villa. Outside, there were plenty of carabinieri, the Italian military police, and Italian state police officers.

By Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI’s final trip as pope was a 15-minute helicopter ride from the Vatican to the papal summer villa at Castel Gandolfo.

He was joined in the Italian government chopper by his personal secretary and assistant secretary, his personal physician, his new valet and an official of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household.

Clergy and Vatican workers wave from a rooftop as the helicopter carrying Pope Benedict XVI leaves the Vatican on its way to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Feb. 28. (CNS photo/Alessandro Bianchi, Reuters)

Almost all 100 members of the Swiss Guard, dressed in their colorful medieval uniforms, were standing at attention in the San Damaso Courtyard of the Apostolic Palace to formally salute the man they had pledged their lives to protect.

For the last three hours of Pope Benedict’s pontificate, the rest of the guards were stationed at the entrances to Vatican City, at the heliport in the Vatican Gardens and at the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo.

Joining the Swiss Guards in the courtyard were dozens of bishops, monsignors, priests, nuns and laypeople who work in the Vatican Secretariat of State and other offices nearby.

The pope greeted his vicars for Vatican City and Rome — Cardinals Angelo Comastri and Agostino Vallini — before using his to cane walk down a few steps into the courtyard. He was greeted with applause.

The pope’s driver knelt in front of him, kissed his ring and burst into tears.

As soon as the pope’s car pulled away, the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began tolling their farewell. Driven to the helipad in the Vatican Gardens, his flight to Castel Gandolfo began at 5:07 p.m.

By The Dialog

Bishop Malooly’s homily at Mass in Thanksgiving for Pope Benedict

The following is the text of Bishop Malooly’s Feb. 28 homily during a Mass of thanksgiving for Pope Benedict XVI at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Church in Greenville.

We take a break from our Lenten season for a moment of thanksgiving, thanksgiving for the life and ministry of Pope Benedict XVI. As we pray at this moment, he has already left the Vatican by helicopter to go to Castle Gandolfo. In less than two hours he will have resigned the papacy. I want to reflect for a few moments what he has meant to us and what he will continue to mean to us. Our pastor, Msgr. Joe Rebman, chose the readings for this particular Mass. He had intended to celebrate it himself and most graciously, as always, welcomed my request to be the celebrant as the diocesan bishop.

In the Hebrew scriptures, the prophet Ezekiel talks about the shepherd who tends his flock and that shepherd would seek out the lost sheep. For Pope Benedict his ministry wasn’t just maintenance of the church but a constant emphasis on evangelization and strengthening the faith. We see that specifically in his writings, teachings and in his travels. He has that wonderful facility of being a learned man and yet able to communicate with the masses. His writings are simple and to the point, obvious and yet profound.

In the Gospel from John, Jesus reminds us that “this is my commandment, love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down ones life for ones friends.” This is exactly what Pope Benedict has done. His love is so great that his resignation is his laying down his life for the continued growth of the church.

The Holy Father reminds us that this will be a time of prayer for him. As each Christian gets older prayer becomes the opportunity to draw even closer to the lord and at the same time to provide a special gift of intercession before the lord for all of us.

The Holy Father in his last public appearance spoke very personally about his relationship with the Lord. He told us, “he has been close to me. Daily I could feel his presence.” And then he continued, “I have felt like St. Peter with the apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and gentle breeze, days in which the catch has been abundant, then there have been times when the seas were rough and the wind against us, as in the whole history of the church it has ever been – and the lord seemed to sleep.  Nevertheless, I always knew that the lord is in the barque and that the barque of the church is not mine, not ours but — his and he shall not let her sink.”

What a beautiful image at this time of transition. As Pope Benedict has given his entire life for the good of the church and now generously and graciously he moves on so that someone else might lead and yet does not abandon us because he has promised to support the church through his prayer and intercession before the Lord. He now takes on a new role for the sake of the church, not unlike what Jesus did so often when he moved away from his disciples for moments of prayer and conversation with his heavenly father.

I have fond memories of Pope Benedict. I remember seeing him many times in St. Peter’s square as Cardinal Ratzinger walking up to priests from any country and beginning a conversation with them in there native language.

In June 2008, after I had been informed I was being appointed bishop of Wilmington but before the public announcement, I was in Rome and in greeting him with 100 other bishops thanked him for this assignment.  Just last January of 2012, I greeted him at the Vatican with the other bishops of our province and he so graciously told me he understood the challenges I faced and kept me in prayer.

And now let me pray for him as in a new way he interceedes on our behalf with the Lord who has been close to him, daily, as he said, “I could feel his presence.”

I thank god for the gift of Pope Benedict!

By Francis X Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — The Clementine Hall is traditionally the place where cardinals bid farewell to popes at the end of a pontificate, but usually when the pope in question is lying in state before his funeral.

But on Feb. 28, hours before resigning from the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI briefly addressed the College of Cardinals, calling for unity and harmony among the men who will choose his successor and pledging his “unconditional reverence and obedience” to the next pope.

Pope Benedict XVI addresses the College of Cardinals at the Vatican Feb. 28, the final day of his papacy. In attendance were 144 cardinals, including many of the 115 younger than 80 who are eligible and expected to vote in the upcoming conclave. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters

Pope Benedict addressed144 cardinals, including many of the 115 under the age of 80 who are eligible and expected to vote in the upcoming conclave.

“I will continue to be close to you in prayer, especially in the next days, that you may be fully docile to the action of the Holy Spirit in the election of the new pope,” Pope Benedict told the gathering in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. “May the Lord show you what is wanted of you. Among you, among the College of Cardinals, there is also the future pope, to whom today I promise my unconditional reverence and obedience.”

The cardinals are expected to begin meeting March 4 to plan the papal election.

Looking back on his almost eight-year pontificate, Pope Benedict recalled “very beautiful moments of radiant light on the path of the church, together with moments in which the occasional cloud thickened in the sky.”

The pope invoked God’s help in building unity, “so that the College of Cardinals might be like an orchestra, where diversities, expressive of the universal church, always run together to a superior and harmonious concord.”

Pope Benedict also recalled the previous day’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square, attended by an estimated 150,000 people, saying that the gathering demonstrated that the “church is a living body, animated by the Holy Spirit, and truly lives by the strength of God.”

Referring to the work of the late German theologian Father Romano Guardini, the pope said the church keeps alive the mystery of the incarnation since its members “offer to God their own flesh and, in their very poverty and humility, become capable of generating Christ today in the world.”

The cardinals responded with a standing ovation.

Prior to the pope’s remarks, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, addressed a short tribute to the departing pontiff, whose resignation was scheduled to take effect at 8 p.m. the same day.

“With great trepidation the cardinal fathers present in Rome rally around you today to show once again their profound affection and express to you their deep gratitude for your witness of self-denying apostolic service, for the good of the church of Christ and all humanity,” the cardinal said.

Cardinal Sodano concluded his remarks with a German expression, “Vergelt’s Gott”: “May God reward you!”

Following the brief ceremony, Pope Benedict received individual greetings from the assembled cardinals and from officials of the Roman Curia, the church’s central administration at the Vatican. Most kissed the pope’s ring, with some also genuflecting before they exchanged a few words with the pope; a few were brought up in wheelchairs.

Some cardinals handed the pope what appeared to be personal notes or small presents; Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, one of Pope Benedict’s former students, gave him a book.

By Carol Glatz

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — They said it with signs, serenades, and even a field of grain.

Catholics in Rome and all over the world found myriad ways to pay homage to Pope Benedict XVI before his resignation Feb. 28.

A poster erected by the city of Rome thanking Pope Benedict XVI is seen near the Vatican Feb. 28. The poster says in Italian: “You will remain always with us. Thanks.” (CNS/Paul Haring)

A farmer near the northern Italian city of Verona plowed the image of a giant dove in his pasture. The six-and-a-half acre “portrait” includes the word “Benedictus XVI.” The “land artist” was able to position the dove’s beak near a tree so that it appeared to have an olive branch in its mouth.

Young people in the Archdiocese of Campinas, Brazil, launched a campaign on Facebook asking people to “wear red shoes in homage to Pope Benedict on Feb. 28.”

People were encouraged to take a picture of themselves wearing red slippers, high-tops, sandals or any kind of footwear, as long as it was red, then to post and share the snapshot on the “JMJ Campinas” page on Facebook. Participants were eligible to win a YouCat, a supplement to the catechism created for young people.

Students in Dublin were planning to tweet “Beannacht De Ort”(God bless you) and other messages of thanks to the pontifical Twitter account, @pontifex, after the pope left the Vatican.

Numerous greetings were appearing on Twitter with various hashtags like #ThanksPontifex and #pope #goodbye.

The city of Rome plastered posters around the city with the pope’s picture and the words: “You will always be with us. Thank you.”

The Italian post office parked a mobile van not far from the Vatican to sell commemorative stamps issued in 2005 celebrating Pope Benedict’s election.

The Vatican office was offering special collectors’ packs, envelopes, stamps and cancellation marks commemorating the pope’s resignation.

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, issued a special four-page color insert with its March 1 edition offering a timeline of Benedict’s eight-year pontificate; his April 24, 2005, homily at his installation Mass; his June 29, 2012, homily on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul; and his Feb. 11 announcement of his intention to resign.

Vatican Radio was providing back-to-back, live coverage with special guests in the studio to reflect on Pope Benedict’s legacy as well as on-the-ground reporting of the pope’s last day at the apostolic palace and his journey by helicopter to the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo.

In a final tribute, the Swiss Guard was to give the pope an honorary salute as he was to leave the apostolic palace around 5 p.m. A smaller regiment was to keep watch over the pope after he arrived 30 minutes later at Castel Gandolfo.

But at 8 p.m., the soldiers guarding the main door to the villa were to ceremoniously close the doors and leave, returning to the Vatican by car. Only an active pope is watched over by the Swiss Guard, while the security detail for the retired Pope Benedict will be the Vatican police.

Parishes all over the world were holding special Masses, morning prayer services and moments for eucharistic adoration offered in honor of Pope Benedict Feb. 28, his last day as pope. For all services scheduled before 8 p.m. Rome time, it would be the last time parishioners could use Pope Benedict’s name in the eucharistic prayer.

Masses and prayers were also being offered for the pope during his retirement and the College of Cardinals as they prepare to elect a new leader of the universal church.

Some churches in Rome and Castel Gandolfo were planning to toll their bells at 8 p.m., the time the pope’s resignation was to go into effect and begin the “sede vacante.”

The choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. was going to offer a musical tribute to the pope after a Mass of Thanksgiving.

Students from 58 different schools in the Archdiocese of Dublin dedicated three days of concerts in Dublin’s Helix theater, including readings from texts written by the pope.

Those who could showed their support and affection by attending the pope’s last Angelus address Feb. 24 and last general audience Feb. 27. A total of at least 200,000 people attended those events and expressed their thoughts from afar with cheers and homemade signs.

The organist paid homage to the pope at the start of the general audience by playing a musical piece by Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the pope’s favorite composers.

The Rome youth group, “Papaboys,” held an afternoon serenade under the pope’s window the day before his departure, singing Bach’s “Stay with us, for evening falls” in Italian and praying the rosary in Latin.

Later that evening, about 100 people gathered with candles under a nearly full moon singing “Jesus Christ, You Are My Life” and other past World Youth Day songs.

Thousands of messages had been pouring in to the pope with good wishes and prayers, and many world and Christian leaders released public statements paying tribute to the pope and his legacy.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a Catholic, thanked the pope for his “years of service and dedication to God, the Catholic Church, and world peace.” He said he would keep the pope in his prayers and wished “him well as he enters into retirement.”

On behalf of the government and people of Ireland, Prime Minister Enda Kenny praised the pope for having “given strong leadership and great service to the church and her people for many decades.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople paid tribute to the pope’s commitment to Christian unity, saying he has left “an indelible mark on the life and history of the Roman Catholic Church, sealed not only by his brief papacy, but also by his broad and longstanding contribution as a theologian and hierarch of his church, as well as his universally acknowledged prestige.”

By Cindy Wooden

and Francis X. Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Wherever journalists and bookmakers may be getting the names on their lists of top candidates for the next pope, it’s not from the cardinals who will actually vote in the election. Both custom and canon law forbid the cardinals to discuss the matter in such detail with outsiders.

Moreover, the true “papabili,” literally, pope-ables, are likely to emerge only after all the worlds’ cardinals, not just the 117 who will be under 80 and eligible to vote, begin meeting at the Vatican in the coming days.

One thing is already clear, however: because of their experience and the esteem they enjoy among their peers, certain cardinals are likely to serve as trusted advisers to the rest in the discussions and election. Read more »