be God’s representative on earth give up on the job. “The cardinals were just looking at one another,” Sanchéz Barba said. Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who must have been forewarned, delivered a brief and perhaps hurriedly composed speech. Before going on to assure the Pope of the cardinals’ loyalty and devotion, he said he and the others present had “listened to you with a sense of bewilderment, almost completely incredulous ”. At the end of his address, the Pope blessed those present, and left. “It was so simple; the simplest thing imaginable,” said Sanchéz Barba. “Then we all left in silence. There was absolute silence … and sadness.” John Thavis, who spent 30 years reporting on the Holy See and whose book, The Vatican Diaries, is soon to be published, said he had had an intuition the Pope might be about to resign and timed his return to Rome from the US accordingly. A fellow-Vatican watcher confirmed this to be the case. Thavis noted that in the book-length interview Benedict gave to a German journalist, published as Light of the World in 2010, he had made it clear he considered it would be right to go if he felt he were no longer up to the job. “I asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects are off the ground. What is more, there