Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be pope. That would be a way too stressful and frustrating job.

Running a nation while also trying to be the spiritual guidance to one of the largest religious groups of people in the world. All while trying to stay true to your principles, not be remembered as a bad pope, and not causing a schism or major division within your flock.

You have to run mass every day, for a large group who are watching your every move and listening to your every word when you do your sermons. You need to be able to speak many languages, and constantly travel or meet with dignitaries with diverse and frustrating customs that you cannot violate.

You need to work to try to reunite the church (or at least not further the schism even more). It looks like the pope has an “infinite” supply of money, but he doesn’t and that supply is supposed to help pay for archdioceses around the world, support the poor, and pay for other missions that have been going for centuries.

You constantly have every theological wonk pressuring you to adjust church policy.

A never ending supply of political intrigue from other cardinals.

Then there’s the scandals caused by your priests under your fold that will inevitably be blamed on you due to your position in the church regardless of any consideration of the immensity of the structure nor other very pertinent issues.

Oh yeah, and there’s the constant threat of assassination from atheists, calvinists, and other groups that want your head on a platter, the relics to be destroyed and every Church to burn to the ground.

The only real benefit is you get to live in a giant drafty 16th century piece of art and wear a pretty big hat.

Pope Benedict did a good job in a difficult time, I wish him well in his retirement.

KJR