The final key consideration is the pope’s potential exposure to legal claims over the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals.

In
2010, for example, Benedict was named as a defendant in a law suit
alleging that he failed to take action as a cardinal in 1995 when he was
allegedly told about a priest who had abused boys at a U.S. school for
the deaf decades earlier. The lawyers withdrew the case last year and
the Vatican said it was a major victory that proved the pope could not
be held liable for the actions of abusive priests.

Benedict is
currently not named specifically in any other case. The Vatican does not
expect any more but is not ruling out the possibility.

“(If he
lived anywhere else) then we might have those crazies who are filing
lawsuits, or some magistrate might arrest him like other (former) heads
of state have been for alleged acts while he was head of state,” one
source said.