Vatican City: Looking tired but serene, Pope Benedict XVI told the thousands who gathered for his weekly audience that he was resigning for "the good of the church" an extraordinary scene that unfolded in his first appearance since dropping the bombshell announcement.
The 85-year-old Benedict basked in more than a minute-long standing ovation when he entered the packed hall for his traditional Wednesday catechism lesson. He was interrupted repeatedly by applause, and many in the audience of thousands had tears in their eyes.
A huge banner reading "Grazie Santita" (Thank you Your Holiness) was strung up at the back of the room. Benedict appeared wan and spoke very softly, but his eyes twinkled with joy at the flock`s warm and heartfelt welcome. He repeated in Italian what he had told his cardinals Monday in Latin: that he simply didn`t have the strength to continue.
"As you know, I have decided to renounce the ministry that the Lord gave to me on April 19, 2005," he said, to applause. "I did this in full liberty for the good of the church."
He thanked the faithful for their prayers and love, which he said he had "physically felt in these days that haven`t been easy for me." And he asked them to "to continue to pray for me, the church, and the future pope."
The atmosphere was festive and warm, if somewhat bittersweet, as if the faithful were trying to persuade Benedict to stay with them for just a bit longer. A chorus of Italian schoolchildren serenaded him with one of his favorite hymns in German a gesture that won over the pope, who thanked them for singing a piece "particularly dear to me."
"He gave us eight wonderful years of his words," Ileana Sviben, an Italian from the northern city of Trieste who couldn`t hide her sadness. "He was a wonderful theologian and pastor."
The Rev Reinaldo Braga Jr, a Brazilian priest studying theology in Rome, said he too was saddened when he first heard the news.
"The atmosphere was funereal but nobody had died," he said. "But then I realized it was a wise act for the entire church. He taught the church and the world that the papacy is not about power but about service."
It was a sentiment the retiring Benedict himself emphasized Wednesday when he told his flock that the "path of power is not the road of God."
The audience included groups of nuns waving papal flags, and among the clerics, US Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned as archbishop of Boston at the height of the clerical sex abuse scandal in the United States.
PTI
