Benedict says pray ‘for me and the next pope’

Benedict XVI acknowledges the presence of the thousands of pilgrims gathered below a window of his rooms at the Vatican on Saint Peter’s Square during the Angelus prayer yesterday.Reuters/Vatican CityPope Benedict XVI has asked the faithful to pray for him and for the next pope, in his penultimate Sunday address to a crowded Saint Peter’s Square before becoming the first pontiff in centuries to resign.The crowd chanted “Long live the Pope!”, waved banners and broke into sustained applause as he spoke from his window.The 85-year-old Benedict, who will abdicate on February 28, thanked them in several languages.Speaking in Spanish, he told the crowd which the Vatican said numbered more than 50,000: “I beg you to continue praying for me and for the next pope.”It was not clear why the Pope chose Spanish to make the only specific reference to his upcoming resignation in his Sunday address.A number of cardinals have said they would be open to the possibility of a pope from the developing world, be it Latin America, Africa or Asia, as opposed to another from Europe, where the church is crisis and polarised.“I can imagine taking a step towards a black pope, an African pope or a Latin American pope,” Cardinal Kurt Koch, a Swiss Vatican official who will enter the conclave to choose the next pope, told Reuters.After his address, the Pope retired into the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace for a scheduled, week-long spiritual retreat and will not make any more public appearances until next Sunday.Speaking in Italian in part of his address about Lent, the period when Christians reflect on their failings and seek guidance in prayer, the Pope spoke of the difficulty of making important decisions.“In decisive moments of life, or, on closer inspection, at every moment in life, we are at a crossroads: do we want to follow the ‘I’, or God? The individual interest, or the real good, that which is really good?” he said.The Pope has said his physical and spiritual forces are no longer strong enough to sustain him in the job of leading the world’s 1.2bn Roman Catholics at a time of crisis for the church in a fast-changing world.