can the pope resign?

[magicdice]

or does he have to die in order to no longer be the pope?

just out of interest

thankyou!

[Clanad]

Historically, there have been seven resignations by Pope's.  There have been 18 Pope's deposed, but most attempts were unsuccessful.  You can read more here:

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=902

[magicdice]

ooh that's great! thanks sooooo much, lots of interesting reading for me there

[RogK]

The present Pope apparently wants us all to see a human being on its journey to the end of its life. We've seen him fit and well, we've seen an attempted assassination and now we're seeing him going slowly and possibly painfully on the way to death (but still visible at hospital windows or being transported from one place to another. Always waving). It seems he wants us to witness all this, so I imagine resignation is out of the question in this case.

[buchanan]

I think his line is that Christ couldn't resign from the cross ... That would seem to be a difficult position to change your mind from.