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| Insomnia drove late Pope Benedict to resign: report |
| 2023-01-29 |
Now we know. He made the right call, if it was interfering that badly with his ability to function. [Dawn] Recently deceased ex-pope Benedict described years of persistent sleeping troubles as the "main reason" behind his shock decision to step down in 2013, according to a German media report on Friday.Benedict was plagued by insomnia almost "constantly" from the start of his time as pope in 2005, according to a letter written a few weeks before his death on New Year’s Eve. In the message to his biographer Peter Seewald, obtained by German magazine Focus, Benedict said "strong" pills prescribed to him by his doctor meant he was still able to fulfil his duties as head of the Catholic Church. The drugs however "reached their limits", meaning the ailing German pontiff was less and less available, he said in the letter dated Oct 28, 2022. A nasty accident on a papal visit to Mexico and Cuba in March 2012 precipitated Benedict’s final decision to resign. On the first morning of the trip, Benedict found his handkerchief "totally drenched in blood". "I must have hit something in the bathroom and fallen," Benedict wrote in the letter, according to Focus. Following the incident, his doctor pushed for a "reduction" in Benedict’s use of sleeping pills and insisted that Benedict only participate in morning events on future foreign trips. It was quickly clear to Benedict that the medical restrictions could only be followed "for a short time", he wrote, leading him to announce he would step down in 2013 before the next major trip to Brazil. Benedict shocked the world with his announcement, making him the first pope in nearly six hundred years to step down. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #5 He did some good stuff and angered all the right people. I think he knew the true condition of the Vatican and felt that he didn’t have the strength to get the needed reformation done. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2023-01-29 16:01 |
| #4 Historically the Pope was the more the secular leader of the Holy States, a large fraction of what is now modern Italy, and the College of Cardinals had the role of deciding theology. In modern times it must be a tremendous strain to be 'perfect', unless you are a raving megalomaniac. |
| Posted by: magpie 2023-01-29 13:29 |
| #3 Nothing like pedophilia in the Vatican/Catholic ranks to keep one up at night. I guess even reading the good book while lying in bed at night didn't help. Or, he had memories of John Paul I. |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2023-01-29 10:27 |
| #2 My thoughts exactly NN2N1. Or his conscience was bothering him from his own past. |
| Posted by: Chris 2023-01-29 10:16 |
| #1 Given, the #1 cause of Insomnia is usually stress and anxiety, which was likely caused by the job. I would have to ask what role did the many moral issues he was dealing with and trying to correct in the Vatican also play? |
| Posted by: NN2N1 2023-01-29 08:12 |