Rome, Italy, Jul 22, 2010 / 03:27 am
Benedict XVI is now the seventh oldest Pope since reliable records began being collected in the year 1400, according to a U.S. statistician. In the words of Pope Benedict himself, however, age is not as important as wisdom.
Anura Guruge, an IBM information systems expert, IT adviser and obvious fan of papal history, presented a table offering a ranked list of the oldest known Popes on his site www.popes-and-papacy.com on Monday. On that very day, Benedict XVI passed into the seventh slot on his list, just behind John Paul II who died at 84 years old.
Not all Popes in history are considered in the study, explains Guruge on the site, because dates logged in records before the year 1400 "are either unreliable or unavailable and as such are impractical for meaningful analysis."
According to his information, at the age of 83, Benedict XVI is currently seventh on the list of most aged Popes, but should he remain at the helm of the See of Peter until 2015, he will overtake Clement XII, currently in second place after living to 87. Topping the list of oldest Popes in the last six centuries is Leo XIII, who died at 93 years old in 1903.