This is a snippet of a longer article found here.
Twice the Pope cast his audience’s mind back to the day of his election – 19 April 2005 – reiterating that the commitment he took on that day was “forever”. “He who assumes the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and totally to everyone, to the whole Church. His life is, so to speak, totally deprived of the private sphere,” what with all the “pastoral visits”, “public encounters”, “Audiences” and “travelling” he must undertake.
His decision to resign was an easy one, the Pope admitted, but “loving the Church also means having the courage to make difficult, trying choices, having ever before oneself the good of the Church and not one’s own. “
Benedict XVI also looked back at his eight years as Pope, a time which has seen “moments joy and light, but also difficult moments.” Ratzinger evoked the image of the Church as St. Peter’s boat, one he had already used to condemn the failings of the Church ahead of the Conclave which elected him Pope. “The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and gentle breeze days in which the catch has been abundant; [then] there have been times when the seas were rough and the wind against us and the Lord seemed to sleep,” Benedict XVI said. In response to the numerous conspiracy theories and behind-the-scenes events of recent weeks, the Pope said “I have not ever felt myself alone in bearing either the joys or the weight of the Petrine ministry.”
