Source: Spiegel Germany.
“There is something bitter and tragic about (Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to resign)…. Only in his departure has Benedict broken the chains of tradition. Everywhere else, he left those chains alone, or even strengthened them. Only this one time has he stepped beyond himself, beyond his origins, beyond his traditional understanding of the church. Only this one time has he stepped beyond all that has always been held true by the church. In the face of all the problems facing the church in the third millennium, he remained the pope of the 20th century, a pope who was at home in the theological wisdom of the second millennium, but who had no understanding for the third millennium. Benedict was and remains the last old-style church patriarch.”