In his last Sunday blessing from a window overlooking the giant key-shaped piazza, the 85-year-old Pope said he was not “abandoning the Church” by his decision to retire to a former convent inside the walls of the Vatican.
To applause and cheering from the crowd, he said he had been “called” by God to devote himself to a quiet life of prayer and reflection.
“But this doesn’t mean abandoning the church,” he told the crowds packed into St Peter’s.
Benedict said he would “continue to serve it (the Church) with the same dedication and the same love which I have tried to do so until now, but in a way more suitable to my age and to my strength.”
The ‘Angelus’ address was Benedict’s penultimate public appearance as Pope – on Wednesday he will take part in a general audience in St Peter’s Square which is expected to draw even bigger crowds.
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