"The Pope took us a bit by surprise“. In addition to the rest of the world, the Church is also left speechless. To say it is Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Press Office of the Holy See, who in the conference that follows the announcement of resignation of Pope Benedict XVI he barely hides a thread of embarrassment, faced with an unprecedented and delicate situation: "We had no previous information of what the Pope was going to announce" at the end of the Consistory for the three canonizations.
No one knew, therefore, except Ratzinger's closest collaborators. A bolt from the blue, entrusted to a short speech that Father Lombardi reread in front of the press, specifying that the Pope "it will be in full service until 20 on 28 February. From that moment the vacancy will begin".
The official version, and the only one treated by Lombardi, is that of the Pope's tiredness, of that "diminished vigor", undermined by old age and by health conditions that are becoming increasingly difficult, a vigor, that of the body, insufficient in these troubled times. In the future of Ratzinger, who will not participate in the Conclave, the transfer "in Castel Gandolfo and later in the Vatican where there was a monastery of cloistered nuns”.
The new Pope is expected”In March, for Easter".
