Pope Benedict XVI Is Resigning

News out this morning that the Pope will resign effective the end of this month.

The Vatican confirmed this morning that Pope Benedict XVI will resign his position as head of the Cathloic Church later this month. According to a statement written by the Pope to his fellow bishops, "my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," so he will take the unusual step of leaving the job before his death.

I've noticed an increased attention towards social and economic justice in Papal communication lately and have to wonder if this will continue under a new Pope, or whether this was Benedict's own initiative. Here is an excerpt from a recent Papal communication as recently as last week on ostensibly the topic of "Youth Culture":

Young people's essential needs, including decent work and an education, demand a serious, effective response from both the church and the wider community, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Problems facing young people "cannot be met with responses that are evasive or banal," he said, especially if humanity is going to have a hopeful, generous future.

The pope made his remarks Feb. 7 during an audience with members and advisers of the Pontifical Council for Culture. The council was hosting a plenary meeting at the Vatican Feb. 6-9 on "Emerging Youth Cultures."

The vast majority of people under the age of 25 live in developing nations, and the pope said these young people represent "a challenge to the world of globalized consumerism and the culture of entrenched privileges of which a small segment of the population of the western world benefit."

"Consequently, youth cultures are also 'emerging'" in the sense that they are showing signs of important unmet needs that should be addressed, he said. Today's young people are showing in many different ways "a deep need, a call for help or even a 'provocation' that cannot be ignored or left out either by civil society or the church community," he said.

The pope highlighted his and the church's concern about the crisis in education and the labor market as well as "other 'emergencies' that touch on the different dimensions of the human person and his fundamental relationships."

If these issues aren't dealt with adequately, the world and all of humanity will experience not only "economic and social impoverishment, but a human and spiritual one as well," he said.

"If the young no longer hope or progress, if they don't put their energy, their vitality and their ability to look toward the future into the flow of history, then we will find a humanity that is locked in itself, lacking both confidence and a positive attitude toward the future."

Benedict has lately been swinging most topics around to what I perceive as a view he has developed towards foundational economic problems that lead to other social problems within humanity.  Here he turns the "Youth Culture" topic over to a focus on the effect of the current global economic injustice on our youth.

Apostle Paul's teaching here in view:  "Fathers, do not vex your children, lest they may be disheartened..."  Col 3:21

So now that he is stepping down, it remains to be seen whether this emergent operation of exposing a current foundational problematic economic injustice will continue out of the Vatican, or whether it will retire with Benedict.

If this expose of the current economic injustice is indeed a general church initiative perhaps Benedict felt he no longer had the vitality to carry this message forward and his younger successor will pick up the torch where Benedict leaves it.