By Chiara Vasarri & Flavia Krause-Jackson
Pope Benedict XVI, saying he no longer has the strength to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, will resign from the papacy at the end of the month, the first such abdication in almost 600 years.
“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” he said today in an address to senior church officials in Rome.
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