Besides the sexual abuse scandal, there are other problems such as the contentious birth control debate, gay and lesbian issues, homosexual unions, women's issues including their ordination to the priesthood, married priesthood, stem-cell research and the whole field of medical ethics, divorce and re-marriage, vocations to priesthood and religious life, and the exodus of Catholics to other less enlightened religious denominations, and above all listening to the serious concerns of ordinary Catholics that Pope Benedict failed to address. With an a-priori academic, rigid mind-set, and an authoritarian, autocratic approach, Pope Benedict XVI did not have the openness or the psychological mindedness to deal with real problems in the real world. Even theologically and spiritually he needs to have known that we need to let go all pre-conceived ideas about faith and even God so God, the Pure Energy, can come into us and become the In-dweller (Vasudev). This indwelling is nothing but the Pure Gift of Grace. This is what all the dignitaries in the Catholic Church ought to know. Of course from this Pure Gift of Grace proceeds good works for others because we are all one humanity in the One God.

             Pope Benedict's final significant decision of resignation is progressive, and appears to come, I would like to think, from his long dormant liberalism. It is all the more important since he, a conservative, made it. It certainly gives fresh life and new hope to the immediate Church. It will help in ushering the Catholic Church into the modern era. Many more things like democracy, equality, and freedom are needed to launch the Church into the modern era and the Kingdom of God. They will come down like an inevitable avalanche crushing the ramparts of the official authoritarian autocratic Catholic Church that has nothing to do with the Universal Catholic Church of all the members and the spirit of Christ. But the resignation of papacy, the bastion of autocratic authoritarianism is a start. It certainly takes into account the ground realities of a Church that needs to live in the modern world. This one decision of Pope Benedict is certainly a redeeming act in that it begins to demystify the papacy. This may be considered to be the greatest contribution to a lackluster and almost disastrous papacy that went nowhere. I am sure this one decision took the conservatives by surprise. He gave credibility to the idea of a pope's resignation. No serious reform of the church took place under his watch. He also turned the clock back on the second Vatican Council that ended in 1965. In the minds of many progressive theologians, the second Vatican Council was only a beginning of reforming a Church lost in the dark, cruel, and barren desert of the Middle Ages. Pope John Paul II in his long papacy wasted his moral capital and kept the Church limping with his so-called charism. Pope Benedict XVI did not have that charism and not much of moral capital. His energy was already spent under John Paul II in blocking progressive theologians and upholding conservative and absolute traditional values in a relative world. An apt metaphor might be that Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI spent all the ammunition trying to shoot a flying bird with a static gun. They could not accommodate fast and vast changes in the modern world. The teachings of Christ are valid for all times. But the application of these perennial values changes according to changing conditions and times. They were not visionaries. They were not able to see the signs of the times. They were not able to adapt according to the changing times. That is where they went wrong. Any good driver knows that any driving has to be adjusted to the road conditions: heavy rains, cloud bursts, avalanches, snow, sleet, pot-holes, sudden flooding. They were not able to do that.

             Intelligent as they were, they surrounded themselves with conservative and ultra-conservative clergy and made the mistake of thinking that they had absolute, unchallenged authority from Christ, and that they had answers to all the problems facing the Church. Relying on their out-dated concepts of supremacy and infallibility, they used the official machinery to appoint persons who toed their line of thinking as bishops and cardinals to important positions in the Church. Supremacy and infallibility were ill-suited to a servant-Church missioned to serve and not to be served. They only denoted pomposity and separateness that kept disagreements and spawned fruitless debates. Instead of bringing persons together they drove wedges among them and separated them. They demanded absolute obedience and submission from the vast majority of Catholics who are mostly naive and unthinking, and accepted their pronouncements uncritically as part of their faith and routine trust in Church authority.

            The last blow to the papacy came from the butler of Pope Benedict who leaked secrets related to the very inner workings of running the Catholic Church. The problems facing the Catholic Church are enormous and currently, beyond the critical stage, and require very urgent and effective solutions. These solutions have to come from the teachings of Christ as revealed in the Gospels. Many anti-Catholic speculations and gossips related to the resignation of the pope, unfortunately, are floating. I trust in the reasons that the Pope who will be 86 in April 2013 gave: My strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. Reports insinuate that by his resignation he might be also intending the eventual removal of some of the papal Curia who were out of control. The unkindest cut of all after his resignation was the resignation of Cardinal Keith O'Brien amid claims of sexually inappropriate behavior with a seminarian and three priests. O'Brien who publicly acknowledged his sexual misconduct and apologized for the same was scheduled to attend and vote for the new pope as the only representative of the United Kingdom in the papal conclave due to meet in Rome in March 2013. As one of the 115 or 116 cardinals voting and being voted for, he himself could have been electable as a pope. Ironically, O'Brien has been an outspoken critic of gay and lesbian rights, denouncing plans for the legalization of same-sex union/marriage as harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved. O'Brien's resignation is all the more poignant in a Church rocked recently by sexual abuse scandal.

             There is not a single cardinal who has not been appointed by the conservative popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. This is not the way to run a 1.2 billion strong Church that needs to be represented by a cross-section of people. The Church in its governance needs representation from traditional, conservative, progressive, and liberal quarters. No pope is entitled to pontificate God's will. The election of a pope is done in a conclave. A conservative conclave is likely to produce another conservative pope. A notable exception in recent history was Pope John XXIII who did not think of being elected as he had a return ticket to Milan. The conclave, a locked in setting coming from the phrase cum clave (with a key) in Latin where the electors, cardinals below the age of 80, are secluded in the Sistine chapel of the Apostolic Palace, and are not permitted to leave the place before the pope was elected. In the last conclave they were able to leave the Sistine chapel for their living quarters nearby. They are forbidden to have any contact with the outside media. They are able to interact among themselves. Since 1970 only cardinals under the age of 80 could elect the Pope. Currently there are 115 such cardinals. A two-third majority of cardinals present is required for the election. Pope John Paul II changed the procedure, and required only a simple majority after the fourth ballot. Pope Benedict reverted to the previous procedure of two-third majority. No cardinal is allowed to canvas for himself or any other cardinal. The conclave begins in the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals celebrate a Mass for electing the pope in the morning. That afternoon, they begin the election process. They draw lots to select three members to collect ballots from the infirm, three to count the votes, and three others to review the results. After the ballots are duly marked they walk to the altar in order of seniority and make pledges to perform their duty with integrity, and drop the ballots into a chalice. The ballots are tallied, and the result is read to the cardinals. If a cardinal receives two-thirds plus one of the votes, he is the new pope. If there is no winner, a maximum of three more votes may be scheduled for that afternoon. Pope John Paul II was elected at the eighth ballot. Pope Benedict XVI was elected after the fourth. When a pope has not been elected, the ballots are burned with a chemical to produce a black smoke. When a pope has been elected the ballots are burned alone to produce a white smoke. The white smoke emerging from the chimney of the Vatican Palace will announce the election of the pope for those assembled in St. Peter's Square.