Thanks for the feedabck gents! I saw today that the pope had thought about his future in 2000; he questioned his ability to handle his duties in light of the onset of Parkinson's. His conclusion was that he should keep going until his time was up - if God wanted him home, then he figured that he would not have survived being shot. Had he stepped down, he would have been the first pope to do a voluntary RIF (reduction in force) in 700 years.