Pope Says Exit Is for ‘Good of the Church’

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Eisabetta Povoledo and Alan CowellL

Pope Benedict XVI arrived to lead a general audience on Wednesday at the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY---Pope Benedict XVI presided over Ash Wednesday services, his final public Mass, at St. Peter’s Basilica, thanking the faithful for their support during his nearly eight-year pontificate, which will end on Feb. 28 when he becomes the first pope to resign in almost 600 years. The congregants burst into a deafening standing ovation that lasted for minutes and continued as Benedict left the basilica, standing on a wheeled platform, smiling and waving at the people lining the nave of the cavernous Baroque church. In his homily, Benedict called for the end of rivalries in the church. Christians are called to bear witness to faith, to reveal the “face of the church,” which is at times “disfigured,” he said. “I am thinking in particular of the sins against the unity of the church, of the divisions in the body of the church,” he said. “Overcoming individualism and rivalry is a humble and precious sign for those who have distanced themselves from the faith or who are indifferent.” [link]