Through My Eyes - Need I say more?

Numerous documents from the Pontiff's correspondence, which were stolen by the Pope's butler and later published by "Vatileaks" stirred a huge scandal, which started a humungous downward spiral for Benedict XVI's career.

The letters revealed infighting amongst the highest ranks of the Roman Catholic Church. The contents of these documents also suggested that the elderly German Pope was not in full control of either his household or the complex and the powerful institution he was heading.

My father told me last July that there were serious assassination threats on Pope Benedict's life and the rumors of his possible resignation were already flying around the Vatican courtyard.

Even so the news of his resignation is a total shock. The last Pope to resign was Gregory XII, in 1415. Before that, in 1294, was the case of Celestine V, a highly religious hermit who was made Pope against his own wishes, and who hated the job.

Benedict XVI's decision to resign, however, is likely to be seen as a sign of the times, it has been a longstanding tradition that the Pope dies in office.

Unlike his predecessor, Pope John Paul II was in considerably worse health than Benedict XVI. Pope John Paul II suffered from Parkinson's disease; he visibly struggled to carry out the most basic duties of his office. So many times fighting to hold up his head during public ceremonies but John Paul II never gave up till the day he died he served his people.

This week in his statement to the assembled cardinals Pope Benedict XVI said:
"I am well aware that this ministry, because of its spiritual essence, must be carried out not just with deeds and words, but no less with suffering and prayer. Nonetheless, in today's world, subject to rapid changes and shaken by questions of great importance for the life of faith, in order to govern the ship of Saint Peter and announce the Gospel, it is necessary to have a certain vigor of body and soul, vigor, which in recent months, has diminished, forcing me to recognize my incapacity to administer well the ministry that has been entrusted to me."

"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," he said in a statement issued by the Vatican.

It is very possible that Pope Benedict XVI came to a realization that he could not be of any substance to the transformation of the Catholic faith, for seven years of his rule he has been unable to win the hears of his flock maybe with his resignation, in time he will be looked upon with the respect so few people afford him today.

Now on a lighter note, I so wish some of our politicians would take example from Ratzinger and do the same, since they too don't have the mental strength to fulfill their duties.

Galileo was right. You can't stop progress; you can only delay it.