From San Francisco-In the lengthy chronicle of the Roman Catholic Church, the resignation of Benedict XVI has no close precedent. It is highly improbable that the pope acted unilaterally, in response to feebleness or aging. Nothing short of profound crisis could have brought matters to this dramatic turn - and nothing short of a dramatic nod to reform can provide the resignation with coherent meaning.
The most feasible such reform, in terms both practical and theological, is a full-scale reversal of the Vatican's 1,500-year-old ban on married priests.
In 1996, I covered the official visit of Pope John Paul II to Tunisia for The Chronicle. Suffering visibly from the complications of a recent fall, chronic fevers and the first signs of Parkinson's disease, he was unable to walk without two attendants to hold him upright. His voice quavered incoherently. He was a frail shadow of the energetic 58-year-old who had assumed the throne of St. Peter in 1978, in no better condition than Benedict XVI to fulfill his duties. Yet almost nine years were to pass before his papacy ended in death, as it had for all but two of his 263 predecessors.
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Why-Vatican-might-accept-married-priests-4346182.php#ixzz2NK8Zt3ZS
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