Pope's Illness

[Birchy]

Does a Pope have to die in the job, or can he be replaced before this? John Paul II's health will not improve with the workload/travel, so can he "retire"?

[andy hughes]

Tradition has always been that the Pope remains 'in post' until his death - and the current incumbent shows no sign of wishing to head for the allotment.

[Hgrove]

There has only ever been one pope who abdicated in the entire history of the papacy.  Don't quote me on this but I have a feeling his name was Celestine 5th and he is mentioned in Dante's Inferno.

[Peter Pedant]

Yes the abdicator was Celestine V

1295 I think - not a success, he had appointed a series of French Cardinals before anyone could stop him. This precipitated the [Great] Schism when the popes set up shop at Avignon.....Then there were two popes one at Rome and one at Avignon. England for rather obvious reasons followed Rome.

in 1415 - there were briefly three! - each one calling the other two AntiChrists.

going down to one meant a few had to be deposed. - so that is another way of leaving. Sort of abdicating by force.

So yup, there are a few ways you can leave the papacy without going out in a long wooden box.

[JohnPPotts]

Traditionally you're Pope until death, but it also used to be the case that you were Bishop until death, but JP II has introduced a mandatory retirement age for them (70, I think) - however he excluded the Papacy itself from that. Personally (and I should say I am a Catholic) I don't see why they can't pension him off to some small town in Poland and get a new(er) Pope.