[extropy-chat] il papa's last rites?

[scerir]

From: "Damien Broderick" 
> Catholics would then be 
> in an interesting situation: 
> an unreplaceable supreme Pontiff 
> whose silence is infallible 
> and indefinitely protracted.

The Vaticanist Marco Politi reported 
that John Paul II has investigated 
retirement options. A study by Cardinal 
Vincenzo Fagiolo (he died in 2000), 
now in the Pope's personal archives, 
concluded that a pontiff must not resign, 
unless he is in a state of "amentia".
http://www.repubblica.it/2005/b/sezioni/esteri/papa1/nodimis/nodimis.html

(I think that, in case of "amentia",
resignation should be automatic.)