Papal resignation

Papal resignation
A papal resignation (Latin: renuntiatio) occurs when the reigning pope of the Roman Catholic Church voluntarily steps down from his position. As the reign of the pope has conventionally been from election until death, papal resignation is an uncommon event; only five popes have resigned, all but one between the 11th and 15th centuries, with disputed claims of four previous popes having resigned between the 3rd and 11th centuries. On 11 February 2013, Benedict XVI announced his resignation, which is set to take effect on 28 February 2013, 8.00 p.m. making him the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.
Despite its common usage in discussion of papal resignations, the term “abdication” is not used in the official documents of the Church for resignation by a pope. Since the pope is supreme over the Church, there is no process in place for his involuntary removal.

Procedure
The Canon Law of the Catholic Church mentions papal resignation in Canon 332, where it states:
If it should happen that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office (munus), it is required for validity that he make the resignation freely and that it be duly manifested, but not that it be accepted by anyone.
Canon law does not specify any particular individual or body of people to whom the pope must manifest his resignation, but some commentators (notably 18th-century canonist Lucius Ferraris) hold that the College of Cardinals or at least its Dean must be informed, since the cardinals must be absolutely certain that the Pope has renounced the dignity before they can validly proceed to elect a successor.

History
The Catholic Encyclopedia notes the historically obscure resignations of Pontian (230–235) and Marcellinus (296–308), the historically postulated resignation of Liberius (352–366), and that one (unspecified) catalogue of popes lists John XVIII as resigning office in 1009 and ending his life as a monk.
The first historically unquestionable papal resignation is that of Benedict IX in 1045. In order to rid the Church of the scandalous Benedict, Gregory VI gave Benedict “valuable possessions” to resign the papacy in his favour. Gregory himself resigned in 1046 because the arrangement he had entered into with Benedict was considered simony.
A well-known resignation of a pope is that of Celestine V, in 1294. After only five months of pontificate, he issued a solemn decree declaring it permissible for a pope to resign, and then did so himself. He lived two more years as a hermit and then prisoner of his successor Boniface VIII and was later canonised. Celestine’s decree, and Boniface concurring (not revoking it), ended any doubt among canonists about the possibility of a valid papal resignation.
Gregory XII (1406–1415) resigned in 1415 in order to end the Western Schism, which had reached the point where there were three claimants to the papal throne: Roman Pope Gregory XII, Avignon Antipope Benedict XIII, and Pisan Antipope John XXIII. Before resigning, he formally convened the already existing Council of Constance and authorized it to elect his successor.
On 11 February 2013, the Vatican announced that Benedict XVI would resign on 28 February, due to infirmity from advanced age.

Conditional resignations not put into effect
Before setting out for Paris to crown Napoleon in 1804, Pope Pius VII (1800–1823) signed a document of resignation to take effect if he were imprisoned in France.
It has been claimed that during World War II, Pius XII drew up a document with instructions that, if he were kidnapped by the Nazis, he was to be considered to have resigned his office, and that the College of Cardinals were to evacuate to neutral Portugal and elect a successor.
In February 1989, John Paul II wrote a letter of resignation to the Dean of the College of Cardinals, which said that he would resign from the papacy in one of two cases: if he had an incurable disease that would prevent him from exercising the apostolic ministry; or in case of a “severe and prolonged impairment” that would have kept him from being the pope.

Incapacitation
Canon law makes no provision for a pope being incapacitated for reasons of health, either temporarily or permanently; nor does it specify what body has the authority to certify that the pope is incapacitated. It does state that “When the Roman See is vacant, or completely impeded, no innovation is to be made in the governance of the universal Church.”
If requested, a diocesan bishop must offer his resignation from the governance of his diocese on completion of his seventy-fifth year of age and cardinals are not allowed to join a conclave after reaching eighty. However, there is no requirement for a pope to resign upon reaching any particular age. Since the enactment of these rules concerning diocesan bishops and cardinals, three popes, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, reached the age of eighty during their pontificates.
In the years leading up to his death in 2005, some sources suggested that John Paul II ought to resign due to his failing health, but Vatican officials always ruled out this possibility (although we now know that he had considered standing down in 2000, when he turned 80, so he clearly felt the possibility was there). However, Benedict XVI, his successor, announced his pending resignation for just this reason.