REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict bid an emotional farewell at his last general audience on Wednesday, saying he understood the gravity of his decision to become the first pontiff to resign in 600 years but that he had done it for the good of the Roman Catholic Church.
Addressing an estimated 150,000 people in St Peter's Square the day before he steps down, Benedict said his crisis-hit papacy had included moments of joy but also difficulty when, "It seemed like the Lord was sleeping."
Sitting on an ivory colored throne on the steps of St Peter's Basilica and frequently interrupted by applause from the crowd, the pontiff said: "There were moments when the waters were choppy and there were headwinds."
When he finished his speech the crowd, including many red-hatted cardinals, stood to clap. Benedict will abdicate on Thursday night and then cardinals begin consultations ahead of a conclave to choose his successor.
He said he had great faith in the future of a troubled Church, adding: "I took this step in the full knowledge of its gravity and rarity but with a profound serenity of spirit."
Loving the Church meant, "having the courage to take difficult and anguished choices, always having in mind the good of the church and not oneself," he said.
The Vatican has said that Benedict, who will move to the papal summer residence south of Rome on Thursday night when the papacy becomes vacant, will assume the title of "pope emeritus" and be addressed as "your holiness".
He will lay aside the red "shoes of the fisherman" that have been part of his papal attire and wear brown loafers given to him by shoemakers during a trip to Leon, Mexico last year. He will wear a "simple white cassock", Lombardi said.
His lead seal and his ring of office, known as the "ring of the fisherman", will be destroyed according to Church rules, just as if he had died. The Vatican said on Tuesday that the pope was sifting through documents to see which will remain in the Vatican and go into the archives of his papacy and which "are of a personal nature and he will take to his new residence".
Among the documents left for the next pope will be a confidential report by three cardinals into the "Vatileaks" affair last year when Benedict's former butler revealed private papers showing corruption and in-fighting inside the Vatican.
The new pope will inherit a Church marked by Vatileaks and by child abuse scandals involving priests in Europe and the United States, both of which may have weighed on Benedict's decision.
On Thursday, he will greet cardinals in Rome, many of whom have come to take part in the conclave to elect his successor. That afternoon at 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) he will fly by helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, a 15-minute journey south of Rome.
There he will make an appearance from the window of the papal villa to greet residents and well-wishers expected to gather in the small square. That will be Pope Benedict's last public appearance.
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