Photo Gallery Heavenly Signs and the Papal Resignation
Katharina Greve originally drew the cartoon for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung about a year and a half ago. It then appeared in the 2013 "Karicartoon" daily page-a-day calendar on Sunday, February 10 -- the day before Pope Benedict XVI announced he would step down. In the bubble, Benedict says "Holy sack of straw!," after realizing he won the lottery. "I'm quitting tomorrow!"
Another sign from God? Late on Monday afternoon -- after Benedict's historic announcement -- lightning struck St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Some called the images of the strike a hoax, but the BBC also caught it on video.
Here, the same lightning strike captured by an AFP photographer. It came just hours after a senior cardinal had said that Benedict's announcement was like "bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky."
There were perhaps other heavenly signs that change was coming. On Holocaust Remembrance Day at the end of January, Pope Benedict XVI released a dove of peace -- which was then promptly attacked by a seagull. What does it all mean?
Here, the pope with his older brother, Rev. Georg Ratzinger, who said that he knew of the pope's pending announcement long before it was made on Monday.
