There is neither sadness, neither regret, nor nostalgia even on St. Peter’s Square. On the day of Pope Benedict XVI’s final general audience, among the tens of thousands of faithful there were smiling faces and a few tears, not from sorrow but from emotion. When he first emerged in his Popemobile, Benedict was greeted with an explosion of applause before he stopped to hold and kiss a baby.

If the faithful feared Benedict would disappear forever, words of comfort from the outgoing pontiff said otherwise. “I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences and so on. I do not abandon the cross, but remain in a new way near to the Crucified Lord,” he told those gathered at St. Peter’s Square. “I no longer wield the power of the office for the government of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, within St. Peter’s bounds.”

His words, reassuring and not formal, were aimed directly at the heart of so many different people from all over the world, of all ages, united by a historical event.

He did speak of the testing times, comparing it to a noted Biblical passage. “[These years] have been a stretch of the Church’s pilgrim way, which has seen moments joy and light, but also difficult moments. I have felt like St. Peter with the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee: [...] there have been times when the seas were rough and the wind against us, as in the whole history of the Church it has ever been.”

In the end though, he showed gratitude to the faithful: “I thank each and every one of you for the respect and understanding with which you have welcomed this important decision.”

And the reasons, real or imagined, of this decision now take a back seat in the face of a man who will continue to wear white as a Pope, but a few hours will be called ‘Papa Emeritus’.

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Outgoing pontiff Pope Benedict XVI will no longer wear his trademark red shoes, the famous papal footwear the color of which symbolizes the blood of the martyrs. Instead, the emeritus pope will flaunt a pair of handcrafted leather wine-red-colored loafers handmade by artisans in Mexico, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, has announced. “Mexicans will be happy to know that the pope very much appreciated the shoes” he received as a gift during his 2012 visit in León, Mexico, said Lombardi. “He finds them very comfortable.”

In an exclusive interview with Metro, Armando Martin Dueñas, chairman of Ackerman, the company in León that designed the shoe, says the Pope’s gesture is the perfect validation that his workers are doing a exemplary job.

Q: How did it come about that the Pope will now wear your shoes?

A: The industry in León is run on leather goods and footwear, a tradition that dates back over 400 years. It is the economic sustenance of a region of 1.8 million inhabitants. When we made the pair of shoes for His Holiness, it was a token of appreciation, affection, love and kindness for being here [in León, Mexico], especially given his age and fragile condition.

For us, that he will wear the shoes is a way to confirm that he remembers us. It encourages and strengthens us that Benedict finds them comfortable and gives us the assurance that what we do we do well.

Q: What are the shoes’ characteristics?

A: They are made in the color – wine red – and with the kind of leather that we saw fit to offer the Pope. The outside and lining of the shoe for His Holiness is made from the skin of an stillborn or prematurely born calf. This type of leather is very soft.

Q: Will you make this Pope shoe for general sale?

A: We already have had some requests for more shoes and we have given seven similar pairs to different priests and bishops. We have not marketed them, but it would give it us great pleasure if someone needs them – we are ready to provide them.

Q: Do you have more shoes of this type to send to the Vatican?

A: We have three pair of shoes ready to send which His Holiness now requires. We also have made others in black color for him.

Q: And how much would a pair of this kind cost?

A: It has never been given a price. It is a gift.

Q: How many shoes does your company make in one year? How many people work with you?

A: Our 65 staff make 83,000 pairs of shoes in one year.

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Pope Benedict will keep the honorific title of “His Holiness” after he abdicates this week and will be known as “pope emeritus,” the Vatican said on Tuesday.

He will wear a “simple white cassock” and his papal ring of office will be destroyed according to Vatican tradition, a spokesman told a briefing.

He will lay aside the red “shoes of the fisherman” that have been part of his papal attire and wear brown loafers given to him by shoemakers during a trip to Mexico last year.

Benedict on Thursday will become the first pope in some six centuries to resign instead of ruling for life.

Given the rarity of the occasion, Vatican officials have had to decide what he will be called and how he will dress.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he will be known as either “pope emeritus Benedict XVI” or “Roman Pontiff emeritus Benedict XVI”, be addresses as “Your Holiness,” and be referred to as “His Holiness”.

The spokesman said Benedict had made the decisions concerning his titles after consulting with Vatican officials.

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Pope Benedict, in his first public comments since he announced that he would become the first pontiff in centuries to resign, on Wednesday said he was fully aware of the gravity of his decision but confident that it would not hurt the Church.

“Continue to pray for me, for the Church and for the future pope,” he said in unscripted remarks at the start of his weekly general audience, one of his last public appearances before he resigns on February 28.

The pope, who looked and sounded strong, was interrupted several times by thunderous applause from the some 8,000 faithful and tourists who packed the vast audience hall.

In brief, prepared remarks that mirrored those he read to stunned cardinals when he announced his decision on Monday, the pope said God would continue to guide the Church because it was much more than its earthly leader.

“I took this decision in full freedom for the good of the Church after praying for a long time and examining by conscience before God,” he said.

He said he was, “well aware of the gravity of such an act but at the same time aware of not being able to carry out my (papal) ministry with the physical and spiritual force that it requires”.

Benedict said he was sustained by the “certainty that the Church belongs to Christ, who will never stop guiding it and caring for it”.

He said that “he felt almost physically” the affection and kindness he had received since he announced the decision.

Later on Wednesday, an Ash Wednesday Mass that was originally scheduled to have taken place in a small church in Rome, has been moved to St Peter’s Basilica so more people can attend.

Unless the Vatican changes the pope’s schedule, it will be his last public Mass.

Meanwhile, the conclave to decide the successor to Pope Benedict will start as early as March 15, the Vatican said on Wednesday.

The conclave, when cardinals gather to elect a new pope, will start between 15 and 20 days from when the papal seat is vacated on February 28, Vatican Spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told a news conference.

Pope Benedict stunned the Church on Monday when he announced the first papal abdication in centuries. Lombardi said Catholics should not be disoriented by Benedict’s decision.

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Pope Benedict surprised the world on Monday by saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to cope with the demands of his ministry, becoming the first pontiff to step down since the Middle Ages and leaving his aides “incredulous”.

The 85-year-old German-born Pope, hailed as a hero by conservative Catholics and viewed with suspicion by liberals, said he had noticed that his strength had deteriorated over recent months.

A Vatican spokesman said the Pope had not resigned because of “difficulties in the papacy” and the decision had been a surprise, indicating that even his closest aides were unaware that he was about to quit. The Pope does not fear schism in the Church after his resignation, the spokesman said.

The Pope’s leadership of 1.2 billion Catholics has been beset by a child sexual abuse crisis that tarnished the Church, one address in which he upset Muslims and a scandal over the leaking of his private papers by his personal butler.

In a statement, the pope said in order to govern “…both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.

“For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter.”

Before he was elected Pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was known by such critical epithets as “God’s rottweiler” because of his stern stand on theological issues.

But after several years into his new job he showed that he not only did not bite but barely even barked.

In recent months, the Pope has looked increasingly frail in public sometimes being helped to walk by those around him.

A Vatican spokesman said the pontiff would step down from 2 p.m. ET on February 28, leaving the office vacant until a successor was chosen to Benedict who succeeded John Paul, one of history’s most popular pontiffs.

 MEEK DEMEANOUR, STEELY INTELLECT

A spokesman for the German government said he was “moved” by the news while Israel’s chief rabbi praised Benedict’s inter-faith outreach and wished him good health.

Elected to the papacy on April 19, 2005 when he was 78 — 20 years older than John Paul was when he was elected — he ruled over a slower-paced, more cerebral and less impulsive Vatican.

But while conservatives cheered him for trying to reaffirm traditional Catholic identity, his critics accused him of turning back the clock on reforms by nearly half a century and hurting dialogue with Muslims, Jews and other Christians.

Under the German’s meek demeanor lay a steely intellect ready to dissect theological works for their dogmatic purity and debate fiercely against dissenters.

After appearing uncomfortable in the limelight at the start, he began feeling at home with his new job and showed that he intended to be Pope in his way.

Despite great reverence for his charismatic, globe-trotting predecessor — whom he put on the fast track to sainthood and whom he beatified in 2011 — aides said he was determined not to change his quiet manner to imitate John Paul’s style.

A quiet, professorial type who relaxed by playing the piano, he managed to show the world the gentle side of the man who was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer for nearly a quarter of a century.

The first German pope for some 1,000 years and the second non-Italian in a row, he traveled regularly, making about four foreign trips a year, but never managed to draw the oceanic crowds of his predecessor.

STRING OF SCANDALS

The child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy. He ordered an official inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops.

Scandal from a source much closer to home hit in 2012 when the pontiff’s butler, responsible for dressing him and bringing him meals, was found to be the source of leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican’s business dealings, causing an international furor.

He confronted his own country’s past when he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

Calling himself “a son of Germany”, he prayed and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, most of them Jews, died there during World War Two.

Ratzinger served in the Hitler Youth during World War Two when membership was compulsory. He was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler’s regime.

But his trip to Germany also prompted the first major crisis of his pontificate. In a university lecture he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying Islam had only brought evil to the world and that it was spread by the sword.

After protests that included attacks on churches in the Middle East and the killing of a nun in Somalia, the Pope later said he

In a move that was widely seen as conciliatory, in late 2006 he made a historic trip to predominantly Muslim Turkey and prayed in Istanbul’s Blue Mosque with a Turkish Mufti.

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  Pope Benedict over the years

But months later, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami met the Pope and said wounds between Christians and Muslims were still “very deep” as a result of the Regensburg speech.

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