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There's a new Pope a'comin! (with apologies to Wells Fargo Wagon)
STLNATS
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You know you're a fanatically obsessive collector when...
After hearing of Benedict's decision to resign this morning, the first thing I thought was what the impact would be on the coins and medal issues this year. And, if the conclave goes into July - and assuming they follow tradition - there might be 3 or more official medals to collect (sede, sede annual and new pope election issue). And I don't even want to think about if its a repeat of 1978!
In 2005, I'd just purchased, but had not yet received, the last medal needed for my "one of each pope" set when JP II died. Just never seems to end...
After hearing of Benedict's decision to resign this morning, the first thing I thought was what the impact would be on the coins and medal issues this year. And, if the conclave goes into July - and assuming they follow tradition - there might be 3 or more official medals to collect (sede, sede annual and new pope election issue). And I don't even want to think about if its a repeat of 1978!
In 2005, I'd just purchased, but had not yet received, the last medal needed for my "one of each pope" set when JP II died. Just never seems to end...
Always interested in St Louis MO & IL metro area and Evansville IN national bank notes and Vatican/papal states coins and medals!
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<< <i>Benedict's decision to resign this morning >>
Hadn't heard anything about it!
I sorta miss your Viking ship avatar, but the little puffin is cute. He needs a soccer ball photoshopped in, though- looks like he's kickin' through the grass.
End of Religion. Prophacy
FOR SALE Items
The only medal of Benedict XVI which I used to own (and probably one of the better portraits of him on a medal that I've seen):
Virtus Collection - Renaissance and Baroque Medals
Suits me fine! /sarc.
Wonder if they used the Maya calendar too.
I sorta miss your Viking ship avatar, but the little puffin is cute.
that's actually a pic of me and it goes with my new motto: just puffin' along....
Benedict resigned indicating he was no longer able to perform the duties of the office. First resignation for something like 600 years.
<< <i>Hadn't heard anything about it! >>
I apparently get all of my news through the PCGS forums.
Probably just as good a source as any, and probably better'n most!
edited to add: Here's some Papal resignation history from the Washington Post. Only Gregory did coins, albeit very scarce, but it's possible to get "restitution" medals from them all. Looks like I've got a new collecting theme!
Pope Benedict IX, in 1045: At age 33 and about 10 years into his tumultuous term, the Rome-born pope resigned so that he could get married – and to collect some cash from his godfather, also Roman, who paid Benedict IX to step down so that he might replace him, according to British historian Reginald L. Poole’s definitive and much-cited history of the 11th century.
Pope Gregory VI, in 1046: The same man who had bribed and replaced his godson ended up leaving the office himself only a year later, according to Poole’s account. The trouble began when Benedict IX failed to secure the bride he’d resigned for, leading him to change his mind and return to the Vatican. Both popes remained in the city, both claiming to rule the Catholic church, for several months. That fall, the increasingly despondent clergy called on the German Emperor Henry III, of the Holy Roman Empire, to invade Rome and remove them both. When Henry III arrived, he treated Gregory VI as the rightful pope but urged him to stand before a council of fellow church leaders. The bishops urged Gregory VI to resign for bribing his way into office. Though the fresh new pope argued that he had done nothing wrong in buying the papacy, he stepped down anyway.
Pope Celestine V, in 1294: After only five months in office, the somber Sicilian pope formally decreed that popes now had the right to resign, which he immediately used. according to a report in the Guardian. He wrote, referring to himself in the third person, that he had resigned out of “the desire for humility, for a purer life, for a stainless conscience, the deficiencies of his own physical strength, his ignorance, the perverseness of the people, his longing for the tranquility of his former life.” He became a hermit, but two years later was dragged out of solitude by his successor, who locked him up in an Italian castle. Celestine died 10 months later.
Pope Gregory XII, in 1415: The elderly Venetian had held the office for 10 years, but he was not the only pope. For decades, the Western Schism had left Europe with two popes, one in Rome and one in the French city of Avignon, according to Britannica. The schism’s causes were political rather than theological: the pope had tremendous power over European politics, which had led its kings to become gradually more aggressive in manipulating the church’s leaders. Gregory XII resigned so that a special council in Constance, which is today a German city, could excommunicate the Avignon-based pope and start fresh with a new, single leader of the Catholic church.
<< <i>You know you're a fanatically obsessive collector when...
After hearing of Benedict's decision to resign this morning, the first thing I thought was what the impact would be on the coins and medal issues this year. And, if the conclave goes into July - and assuming they follow tradition - there might be 3 or more official medals to collect (sede, sede annual and new pope election issue). And I don't even want to think about if its a repeat of 1978!
In 2005, I'd just purchased, but had not yet received, the last medal needed for my "one of each pope" set when JP II died. Just never seems to end...
Count me in the group of fanatically obsessed (or mentally disturbed).....the sede vacante coin/medal issue was my immediate thought. Today's announcement should fuel some spirited conspiracy theory debates.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Yeah, mea culpa. That also crossed my mind very quickly. Shows us our priorities.
DPOTD
Virtus Collection - Renaissance and Baroque Medals