The morning of February 11, 2013 started off as typically quiet and “normal” for most of the world, but it was about to reverberate in both shock and disbelief for billions of Christians:  Pope Benedict XVI, the Vicar of Christ, heir to the See of St. Peter, and head of the Vatican State, announced his retirement from the Papacy.

For a few within the inner sanctum, it may not have been that surprising. However, ten years on, not all remains clear about this fall from grace; trapped under the surface of this momentous development in the Roman Catholic Church is a timebomb, and it is one that I think Benedict planted in hopes that a future scholar would unpack.

To get there, we must connect many dots, both horizontally and vertically, through time and space, following the evidence from various disciplines and studies, gazing back through ancient cultures and finding the threads that lead to our “now.”

Pope Benedict XVI has recently passed away, almost ten years after his resignation, and so now is the time to open a casket – not his, of course, but one that was stowed away in the catacombs of history, with an eternal candle barely flickering amidst the dusty cobwebs. Even in his death, Benedict XVI gave us one last exhale that jiggled that old flame, adding just enough oxygen to cast one last dancing shadow on the walls.

What does this have to do with astrology and Mars? Well, no discovery worth its salt was ever beheld after a skiddilyhop, and no religious mystery was ever solved just by reading a tourist’s Vatican Visitor’s trifold handout. We have to take a journey, and so here is our first step.

♂

• astrology
• Exaltation of Mars
• Jesuits
• mundane affairs
• Pope Francis
• Vatican