NEW YORK — Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement Monday that he was stepping down because he was too elderly and infirm for the job was the first papal resignation in 598 years.
It put Benedict among the handful, out of the 265 recognized popes in history, who have resigned as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
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Pope Marcellinus (296 - 304) was forced to resign his papacy after he succumbed to pressure from the Roman Emperor Diocletian and offered incense to pagan gods. This was during the deadly wave of Diocletian's persecution of the Church. And Celestine V, despite being canonized by the Church, was sentenced to Hell in Dante's Inferno, for running away from the Church instead of reforming it.