By Uduma Kalu
Why did Pope Benedict XVI, in his resignation letter ask that Catholics should pray for him and the next Pope? Yes, he is a man of history.

He wears  the red garment of the priests of the Middle Ages. So, is he plagued by the Nostradamus and St Malachy visions of the end of the world, the  112 popes and the  last pope that will be named Peter, the Roman?

“End of the World”  has been an endless discussion.  This time, the Vatican, Nostradamus, St Malachy, and the Comet ISON are front and centre of talks about the end of times. Nostradamus and St Malachy are being cited  in the West as the source of predictions that the next pope will be the last pope, and his reign shall herald the world’s end.

Pope Benedict XVI (POPE EMERITUS)

The Comet ISON is allegedly a manifestation of these predictions. The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI effective February  28 turned on the alarm for some people who have heard or read about “the last pope” as believed to have been predicted by St Malachy and Nostradamus. The predictions are somehow interpreted this way:  The next pope will be the last one because “Judgment Day” will take place while the soon-to-be-named papal successor is seated.

Saint Malachy was a 12th century Irish Archbishop. He was known for some reported miraculous powers, such as healing and declaring prophecies. While in Rome in 1139 AD, he is said to have had a vision of all the future popes — from Pope Celestine II (1143 AD) up to the reigning pope, Benedict XVI. According to some interpretations, the pope who succeeds Pope Benedict XVI will be the last one to sit in the Vatican before doomsday.

Nostradamus or Michel de Nostredame, was a 16th century French astrologer whose writings led many to believe that he has seen the end of the world as a seer. According to various interpretations, Nostradamus predicted the Pope to replace Benedict XVI will “flee Rome” in the month of December, at a time when the sky has two suns.

Incidentally, scientists are expecting Comet ISON to show up the sky in December 2013. “ISON’s path is very similar to that of Kirch’s Comet, a.k.a. Newton’s Comet, a.k.a. the Great Comet of 1680, which was bright enough to be seen in daylight and had a magnificently long tail,” reports TIME.com.

Added to this, a prophecy, purportedly revealed to a woman was sent online on June 1 2011  predicting the  resignation of Benedict. “My beloved Vicar’s days are now numbered . He would have left The Vatican, before The Warning takes place,” the message said.  On September 6, 2011 was another  1976 message saying, “When you see, when you hear, when you feel the revolution in Rome, when you see the Holy Father fleeing… know that the time is ripe. But beg and plead that your good Pontiff does not leave Rome, for he will allow the man of dark secrets to capture his throne.”

Still in 2011, another message went thus: “Pray for My beloved Pope Benedict. He is surrounded by … Prayer can help delay his imminent departure when he will be forced to leave the Vatican as foretold. Pray, pray, pray for this period in time for it will be the darkest ever to befall my sacred servants, Bishops, Cardinals and all true followers of Mine. The keys of Rome will now be handed back to God, the Almighty Father.”   All were said to have come from Jesus Christ.

So, was the Pope  forced to resign, or did he resign voluntarily?   According to his resignation speech, the pope resigned because of age. “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” part of the statement read.

Speculation mounted on why the pope had decided to resign being the first Pope to resign since the last Pope resigned 600 years ago. The statement claims that the Pope is wanted for crimes against humanity and ordering a criminal conspiracy. “On Friday, February 1, 2013, on the basis of evidence supplied by our affiliated Common Law Court of Justice (itccs.org), our Office concluded an agreement with representatives of a European nation and its courts to secure an arrest warrant against Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict, for crimes against humanity and ordering a criminal conspiracy,” the statement read. These reports however are yet to be confirmed.

Enter the conspiracy theories. This is expected . A Pope hasn’t resigned in centuries, and certain aspects of Benedict’s time at the top of the Vatican have been controversial , not least the damaging ‘VatiLeaks’ scandal. Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper alleged that Benedict’s resignation was prompted by a report prepared by three Cardinals on conflict and corruption in the Vatican. The newspaper  which has the largest circulation within Italy  says that Benedict asked three Cardinals, Julian Herranz, Josef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi, to conduct an internal report after the VatiLeaks scandal. When the 300 page report was delivered to Benedict in December, it reportedly cemented a decision that he had already been considering — it was time to resign.

VatiLeaks, as the scandal came to be known, dragged the fusty institution into the wild WikiLeaks era. It exposed the church bureaucracy’s entrenched opposition to Benedict’s fledgling effort to carve out a legacy as a reformer against the backdrop of a global child sex abuse scandal  in the Church.

The Pope in his Ash Wednesday message asked his clergy to stop the rivalry in the church. “We can reveal the face of the church and how this face is, at times, disfigured,” Benedict said in his final homily on Ash Wednesday. “I am thinking in particular of the sins against the unity of the church, of the divisions in the body of the church.”

He called for his ministry to overcome “individualism” and “rivalry,” saying they were only for those “who have distanced themselves from the faith.”

These are for the next pope to handle.  Washington Post said the next pope may bring with him an invigorating connection to the Southern Hemisphere, a media magnetism or better leadership . But whoever he may be, the 266th pope will inherit a gerontocracy obsessed with turf and Italian politics, uninterested in basic management practices and hostile to reforms.

Reuters on its part reported that a U.N. committee has accused U.S. legal authorities of failing to fully pursue cases of child sex abuse in religious groups, an issue especially troubling the  Church. The Committee on the Rights of the Child wrote this month that it was “deeply concerned” to find widespread sexual abuse by clerics and staff of religious institutions and “a lack of measures  to properly investigate cases and prosecute them”.

Britain’s National Secular Society, which drew attention on Monday to the little-noticed report, said it hoped the Catholic pope to be elected this month would open Church files to help prosecute as yet undiscovered cases of clerical sexual abuse.

The scandal of predator priests has haunted the pontificate of Pope Benedict, who resigned on Feb 28. The Pope has apologized for the abuse and met victims in several countries, but cases and damning internal files are still coming to light.

After years of legal battles, the Los Angeles archdiocese bowed to a court order last month and released 12,000 pages of files showing its former head, Cardinal Roger Mahony, had sent accused abusers out of state to avoid justice in the 1980s.

The National Secular Society, which campaigns at the United Nations against privileges for religious groups, accused Benedict of hushing up abuse cases and obstructing justice.

“We can only hope that his successor opens the secret files and treats victims with the respect they deserve,” its executive director Keith Porteous Wood said in a statement.

The abuse crisis is expected to be among issues cardinals discuss before they enter the Sistine Chapel in mid-March to elect a new pope, but the secrecy of their consultations means it is not clear how much of a role it will play in their choice.

Immunity

By remaining in the Vatican after resignation, Pope Benedict XVI will enjoy immunity from prosecution in connection with the global epidemic of clergy sex abuse claims.

The Pope’s decision to live in the Vatican City, a sovereign state, after his retirement means that he will be protected by both Vatican security and diplomatic immunity.

“His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless,” a Vatican official told Reuters under the condition of anonymity. “He wouldn’t have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security if he is anywhere else.”

The source added that the pontiff should lead a “dignified existence” for the rest of his life.

Under the Lateran Pacts, the 1929 treaty between Italy and the Holy See that established the Vatican City as a sovereign state, those with Vatican citizenship enjoy immunity even if they travel into Italy. The Pope also enjoys diplomatic immunity as an official head of state. Efforts by renowned British evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins and the late British-American author Christopher Hitchens to have Benedict arrested and prosecuted during a 2010 visit to Britain came to naught because of the Pontiff’s diplomatic immunity.

But such immunity means that Benedict, whose pre-papal name was Joseph Ratzinger, would not be eligible for prosecution in connection with the worldwide epidemic of Catholic clergy sex abuse, mostly of children. Critics claim Ratzinger was instrumental in covering up allegations of abuse and protecting offending priests and other clergy.

“His record is terrible,” David Clohessy, US executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told the Guardian. “Before he became Pope, his predecessor put him in charge of abuse claims.

“He has read thousands of pages of reports of the abuse cases from around the world,” Clohessy continued. “He knows more about clergy sex crimes and cover-ups than anyone else in the church, yet he has done precious little to protect children.”

Victims groups claim that as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal department, Ratzinger turned a blind eye as local churches moved priests and other clergy who raped and molested children and other parishioners from parish to parish instead of defrocking them and alerting law enforcement authorities. Ratzinger, who was in positions of power in the Catholic church for three decades, should have done more, critics say.

Classified US embassy cables published by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks in 2010 revealed that the Vatican under Benedict refused to allow its officials to testify before an Irish commission investigating decades of child sex abuse. Even more shocking, a ‘smoking gun’ 1997 letter from the Vatican to Catholic bishops in Ireland ordering them to refrain from reporting child sex abuse cases proved that the highest levels of the Catholic church were complicit in a massive cover-up. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny slammed the Vatican for its “absolutely disgraceful” behavior in the scandal.