VATICAN CITY — In the waning hours of his troubled papacy, Pope Benedict XVI held his final general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday, telling tens of thousands of believers in an unusually personal public farewell that his nearly eight years in office had known “moments of joy and light but also moments that were not easy” when it seemed “the Lord was sleeping.”
The audience came a day before Benedict’s resignation takes formal effect and was one of the last public appearances scheduled before he withdraws from public life to assume what Vatican officials have depicted as a cloistered life of prayer and meditation.
In his homily, the pope cited the biblical voyage of St. Peter and the apostles on the Sea of Galilee, saying God had given him “so many days of sun and light breezes, when the fishing was abundant. But there were times when the waters were choppy and, as throughout the history of the church, it looked as if the Lord was sleeping. But I have always known that the Lord was in that boat, that the boat was not mine or ours, but was his and he will not let it founder.”
His reference was to a passage in the Bible where Jesus falls asleep in a boat with his disciples on the Sea of Galilee.
Explaining his decision to resign — the first pope to withdraw voluntarily in six centuries — he said that in recent months “I felt that my powers were diminished. And I asked the Lord insistently, in prayer, to illuminate me with his light to make me take the right decision not for my good but for the good of the church.”
He added: “To love the church also means having the courage to take difficult decisions.” His words were frequently interrupted by applause.
The pope recalled the day in April 2005 when he assumed the papacy, and, possibly in a message to his successor, said that whoever succeeds him “no longer has any privacy. He belongs forever and totally to everyone, to all the church.”
“My decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not change that. I am not returning to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences et cetera. I am not abandoning the cross, but I remain close to the crucified Lord in a new way,” he said.
Vatican officials said around 50,000 tickets had been requested for the occasion, which drew many more pilgrims into the broad boulevard leading toward the Vatican from the River Tiber.
"I’ve never felt lonely while carrying the burden and the joy of Peter’s ministry,” the pope also said. “Many people have helped me, the Cardinals with their advice, wisdom and friendship, my collaborators starting with the State Secretary and the whole Curia, many of whom lend their service in the background, and all of you,” he said.
“The Pope is never alone and I can now feel it in such a great way that it touches my heart,” he added.
The pope, who is 85, sent shock waves around the Roman Catholic world on Feb. 11 when he announced he would resign on Thursday.
Dressed in white, the pope rode in a covered vehicle known as the popemobile flanked by security guards, weaving through the crowd. Several times, the pope halted to kiss babies handed to him from the throng.
“We came to give the pope our support,” said Giovanni Sali, 25, a student who had traveled from central Italy. “We want him to know we are close to him.”
Lucilla Martino, from Rome, said she had been surprised when the pope announced his resignation, but it had been a “positive shock” and “the right thing to do.”
The resignation left officials scrambling to deal with the protocols of his departure as he ceases to be the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. Only on Tuesday did the Vatican announce that he will keep the name Benedict XVI and will be known as the Roman pontiff emeritus or pope emeritus.
He will dress in a simple white cassock, forgoing the mozzetta, the elbow-length cape worn by some Catholic clergymen, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters at a news briefing on Tuesday.
And he will no longer wear the red shoes typically worn by popes, symbolizing the blood of the martyrs, Father Lombardi said, opting instead for a more quotidian brown.
Benedict’s looming departure has also triggered a surge of maneuvering among the 117 cardinals who will elect his successor in a conclave starting next month, reviving concerns about the clerical abuse scandals that dogged Benedict’s time at the Vatican.
Indeed, the abrupt resignation of the most senior Roman Catholic cardinal in Britain on Monday — after accusations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward priests years ago — showed that the taint of scandal could force a cardinal from participating in the selection of a new pope.
His exit came as at least a dozen other cardinals tarnished with accusations that they had failed to remove priests accused of sexually abusing minors were among those gathering in Rome to prepare for the conclave.
But there was no indication that the church’s promise to confront the sexual abuse scandal had led to direct pressure on those cardinals to exempt themselves from the conclave.
