Pope Resigns to 'Spend More Time with his Family'

In a move that has shocked the Catholic world, the Pope has become the first Pope to resign to spend more time with his family since the middle ages.

A rare picture of the Pope not looking sinister.

The last Pope to be formally deposed was Benedict XI in 1048 AD.  Although his namesake was deposed over alleged bribery, rather than as a result of covering up child abuse cases before he came to office.

This is not the first split that Benedict XVI (aka Joseph Alois Ratzinger) has had with a right wing organisation.  In 1945 he deserted from the German Wermacht (possibly the Luftwaffe, wikipedia is unclear on this point), having previously been an unenthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.

The Pope is not only giving up a position of diminishing spiritual leadership over the world's 1 billion believers, but also temporal power over the Vatican City, the world's smallest country created in 1929 as part of an agreement between the church and Mussolini's fascist state.

In December, the Pope pardoned his former Butler who had been convicted in a Vatican court of leaking documents exposing corruption within the Catholic Church.

Dan Brown was unavailable to comment.

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Unusually, the Pope's own Twitter account (@Pontifex) is silent on his deposition.  His last tweet is 1 day ago:-

"We must trust in the mighty power of God's mercy.  We are all sinners,  but His grace transforms us and makes us new."

Well it looks like 'His Grace' had a word in the ear of Benedict, and had him resign before he was 'transformed' by a little accident.