VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
by Cindy Wooden,Catholic News Service | Feb. 12, 2013
Vatican City —
The Vatican monastery where Pope Benedict XVI intends to live began its life as the Vatican gardener’s house, but was established as a cloistered convent by Blessed John Paul II in 1994.
When Pope Benedict, 85, announced Monday that his age and declining energies prompted his decision to resign effective Feb. 28, the Vatican said he would move out to the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo while remodeling work was completed on the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens.
Pope Benedict said it was his intention to “devotedly serve the holy church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”
Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Tuesday he did not know when the remodeling work would be finished and Pope Benedict could move in. He said, however, that because the monastery is small, the pope would be joined by a small staff, but another community of cloistered sisters would not be moving in.
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