UNITED STATES
Richard Sipe
Nine of the 265 Roman Catholic popes have allegedly resigned their office, most for the good of the Church. The first according to the historian Epiphanius was Clement I around the year 100 C.E. The most recent was Gregory XII who abdicated the papal throne during the Council of Constance in 1417 to help settle the claims of three competitors for the papacy.
Benedict is a conflicted papal name. Two Pope Benedicts have resigned. In 964, after one month in office, Benedict V abdicated the papacy at the insistence of Emperor Otto I. Pope Benedict IX served three different terms between 1032 and 1048 when he resigned and was charged with simony and excommunicated by his successor Leo IX who instituted a concerted drive to purify the church of simony and concubinage.
There is no legitimate Benedict X in the line of papal succession. A “Benedict X” who acted as pope for nine months in 1058 was declared an anti-pope and excommunicated. The actual number of Pope Benedicts therefore is technically incorrect. Joseph Ratzinger now Pope Benedict XVI is actually only the fifteenth Pope Benedict.
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