In Rome... and the Region... people are still coming to terms with the surprise announcement Monday hat Pope Benedict XVI is retiring at the end of the month.  ABC's Tom Rivers in Rome says the Pope is the only story there, front-page news across all the papers. Milan Cardinal Angelo Scoli is considered a top candidate to succeed Benedict.

Bishop Dale Melczek of the Diocese of Gary issued a statement saying he last met with Pope Benedict last February in his study, and described the Pope as “one of the greatest intellectuals and most renowned theologians of our time” and someone who “immediately puts people at ease by his simplicity, humility, and inner sense of joy and peace”.
When Pope Benedict the sixteenth resigns, he will live in a former cloistered convent inside the walls of Vatican City. Robert Moynihan - editor of "Inside the Vatican" in Rome - says Benedict will not participate in the conclave to choose his successor
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