Pope Steps Back From Day-To-Day Role To “Do His Own Thing”
Today, we’ve learned that Pope Benedict XVI, sovereign of the Vatican and leader of the Catholic Church, will be stepping down from those roles.
Benedict, voted one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME, did not give many details as to what he would be doing after the papacy.
Sources tell us that he has some “things in the works” and will share them in the coming weeks.
It is rumored that Benedict XVI, having spent eight years in the role of Pope since his election on April 19, 2005, was considering various Pope In Residence programs but eschewed them in order to “do his own thing.”
He is still listed as “Pope” on the Catholic Church’s Wikipedia page.
He told the press in a statement:
”Thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”
While the Pope isn’t commenting more specifically on his departure or the formality of the prayer project, sources claiming direct knowledge of the situation tell TechCrunch that the departing head of the Catholic Church’s shares in the Vatican may have recently vested, which could be one of many explanations for his eagerness to leave.
The Catholic Church still claims to be the largest spiritual organization in the world, with over a billion members. But some think those numbers are inflated by one-time visitors. “If you look at the number who actually return weekly, or monthly, it shows slowing growth in most regions,” a source, who wished to remain unnamed, told TechCrunch.
Finally, there are many who believe that he’s simply been stuck in the shadow of his predecessor. “Every week you hear at least one person say, ‘This never would have happened if John Paul were still with us,’” one insider told us.
The Pope also suggested that his mysterious next step was a “natural transition” from his previous role, and he was still planning to remain involved in the Church, possibly in an advisor position. “I would have liked to stay longer, but I just saw a big opportunity that I couldn’t pass up,” people familiar with the matter recounted him saying.
While a Pope stepping back is not an everyday occurrence, leaders often leave organizations like the Catholic Church, as they scale or reach a new life stage. Sometimes there is a difference in vision. Sometimes people burn out.
And now it’s happened at the Vatican. We’ll update as we hear more.
Image via Flickr.
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Wrike Releases A Free Version Of Its Project Management App
Wrike is hoping to expand its audience today with the launch of a free version of its project management tool.
Wrike says it already has 2,000 customers including Accenture, Stanford, and Ticketmaster, but until now, the cheapest pricing level was $49 per month. Even though releasing a free version is an obvious way to get more people to try the product, CEO Andrew Filev says he approached the “freemium” model cautiously, to ensure that Wrike didn’t end up “cannibalizing” any of its sales. So it started out by testing a free version via the Google Apps Marketplace, and the model seemed to be working, with 5 percent of free customers converting to paid in a short period of time. So now it’s making a bigger splash by launching a free version on the Wrike website.
The biggest draw? Probably the fact that even if they don’t pay, Wrike users can have an unlimited amount of collaborators, who can access tasks, attach files, and mark tasks complete. (The ability to create and assign tasks is limited to power users, and you get “only” five of those in the free version.) Filev says that’s part of Wrike’s philosophy, because tasks are most useful when you can share them with a large team, even outside a business context. For example, he says that a church might have only a small number of managers, but they might need to coordinate hundreds of volunteers.
What you won’t find in the free version are what Wrike is calling its premium features, such as Gantt Charts, time-tracking, and a drag-and-drop interface for moving project milestones. Filev says he asked, “What are the pieces missing from our competitors? Let’s put those in our paid version.”
Wrike is also announcing a new translation platform that allows its users to translate its UI text into any language. And it’s offering a sneak peek at an alpha version of a new email plugin for viewing Wrike tasks within Apple’s Mail app — you can watch the demo video below.
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