Pope Benedict XVI Resigns: Was it Old Age or Something More Social?

 It was a shock to the Christian community this morning when it was announced that Pope Benedict XVI would resign his post as leader of the Catholic Church. The official statement cites inability to perform regular duties as the leader of the church due to old age as the cause of this most shocking turn of events. However, I am not completely sure that old age has anything to do with this 85 year old's choice to abdicate.
 
Some facts that support old age as a reason include the fact that no pope has made it to their 85th birthday since Pope Leo XIII back in the 1800s and early 1900s. However, he was able to perform his duties up until he turned 93.
 
I had a lot of problems with Pope Benedict's policies, and there was certainly a reason why he was called "God's Rottweiler." This is probably because of my agnostic stand; certainly many Christians follow his word. However, he continually worked to denounce homosexual rights, homosexual marriage, and birth control.
 
However, in an interview conducted in 2010, Benedict stated, "... with the intention of reducing the risk of HIV infection, may be an indication that the prostitute is intending to reduce the evil connected with his or her immoral activity." This statement was aimed at homosexual men who are sexually active, but he still condoned the use of condoms, which he devoted his entire career to deny. Of course we all know that homosexual couples can not create a bady. However, STDs can still be contracted through any sort of sexual behavior. It sounds a bit hypocritical to me that he states that homosexual men can use condoms to reduce risk of AIDs because they are already "sinners," yet heterosexual couples are not allowed, by any means, to use birth control.
 
The sad fact of the world is that not everybody waits. Many Christians want people to wait until marriage, but the reality of all of this is that there are many who do not wait. Condoms are meant to keep an accident from happening, and they are proven to help reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

Benedict also had many problems with scandals over his entire time working for the papacy. For one thing, he stated that pedophilia was a normal behavior.
“In the 1970s, pedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,”
“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than’ and a ‘worse than’. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”
- Belfast Times Article- December 21, 2010
 
This is the man that we are so concerned with resigning his post as the highest power in the Roman Catholic Church. Here is the hard truth: this is a man that uses his power and position to practically justify some of the horrible things he says. He is not retiring because he is old; he is retiring because of the terrible way he has run the church. I have respect for organized religion and people's right to practice it on their own time, but I have no respect for people that promote pedophilia and hatred towards other groups.

Written by R. Turk
http://expertscolumn.com/content/pope-benedict-xvi-resigns-was-it-old-age-or-something-more-social