It will hold conferences around the world to pontificate on various global ills, real or imagined.
For us it's easy to pontificate that the same holds true today with the new Nifty Fifty.
Benedict took extraordinary measures to bring the society back under Rome's wing during his pontificate, but negotiations stalled.
The financial press will start writing and talking about a growth recession, and they'll find a car-load of economists to pontificate at length.
Fr Drew Christiansen, a Jesuit priest and visiting scholar at Boston College, says it is one of the key shortcomings of the pontificate.
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But I can't help but think it is easier for pundits to pontificate about Christie's weight than to examine his record in Trenton.
Nothing has dogged this pontificate so much as the tragedy of child abuse, and it will continue to blot its reputation for decades to come.
So for the second annual Forbes 400 Summit (last year it was Warren Buffett and Jay-Z) Moskovitz, 27, was eager to hear today's greatest philanthropist pontificate.
The experience of the early years of John Paul II's pontificate proves that energy and charisma can revitalize the church without surrendering entirely to modern thinking.
But assuming there is more evidence of such efforts waiting to emerge from the archives, it will undoubtedly help assuage the strong Catholic-Jewish tensions over that controversial pontificate.
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However, the piazza's oval contours didn't brim with faithful the way it did in the early days of his pontificate, following the death of his predecessor, John Paul II.
Peter's Basilica was somber during the Mass, as if the weight of Benedict's decision and the finality of his pontificate had finally registered with the thousands of faithful present.
After his brief pontificate of just 33 days, the new pope took the name John Paul II, he said to provide continuity in respecting the wishes of his short-lived predecessor.
He was interrupted by applause from the pews not so much from the cardinals when he referred to the "beloved and venerated" Benedict XVI and his "brilliant" pontificate.
Posture and pontificate as they might, Julia Gillard, the prime minister and Labor leader, and Tony Abbott, the right-wing coalition leader, were both rejected for being several hat-sizes too big.
But his pontificate was marred by ongoing communication blunders.
Peter's Basilica on Tuesday as Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, offered thanks for the "brilliant pontificate" of Benedict, whose unexpected resignation precipitated the selection of a new pope.
While officials pontificate about the need for reform and the transition to a market economy, the Communist Party is afraid of the social upheaval that could come from such a social change.
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His "Fisherman's Ring", the special signet ring which contains the Pope's name and is impressed to validate certain official documents, is expected to be destroyed along with the lead seal of the pontificate.
The Vatican Bank came under suspicion of money-laundering and failure to conform to international banking regulations during Benedict's pontificate, and its director was forced to resign last year after a stormy board meeting.
The Pope is to spend his final hours at his Vatican residence saying farewell to the cardinals who have been his closest aides during his eight-year pontificate, says the BBC's David Willey at the Vatican.
As the Vatican has delayed the full release of its archives relating to Pius's pontificate, because of a dispute over his reaction to the Nazi Holocaust, there is no means of verifying whether this is true.
The cape has since come to symbolize his rejection of the trappings of the papacy and to some degree the pontificate of Benedict XVI, since the German pontiff relished in resurrecting many of the liturgical vestments of his predecessors.
Although many liberal Catholics were impressed by the gentleness of Benedict's style as Pope - another of his surprises - the conservative views he adopted in the aftermath of the 1960s student revolutions had a profound impact on his pontificate.
Whoever he is, the next pope will face a church in crisis: Benedict spent his eight-year pontificate trying to revive Catholicism amid the secular trends that have made it almost irrelevant in places like Europe, once a stronghold of Christianity.
But because of burdens he inherited and ongoing problems in his own pontificate, Benedict fell short of the mark he set for himself on unifying the church, building relationships with other religions and restoring the church's influence in broader society.
"Since the beginning of my pontificate I have had occasion to express my wish to continue to establish bridges of friendship with believers of all religions, showing particularly my appreciation in the belief in dialogue between Muslims and Christians, " he said.
What surprises me and other Indians is the eagerness of Americans to pontificate about restraint when they themselves gladly go to war for a much smaller number of deaths than what India has had to endure in its 50-year-old coexistence with Pakistan.
They say never trust a man who says, "Trust me, " and I decided while I sat there listening to this man pontificate that anyone in Afghanistan who talked at length about peace, security, and stability was probably working overtime to undermine all three.
That echoed his efforts to define the early days of his pontificate through gestures of humility, taking the minibus instead of the papal motorcade and stopping by the hotel he used as a cardinal elector to collect his bags and pay the bill.
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