On the day the pope resigns, lightning literally strikes St. Peter’s. Here’s the cool photo.

It might be uncool for people who love religion news to admit that they didn’t see it coming. But really, says our-guy-who-gets-the Vatican, Benedict XVI’s resignation shouldn’t come as such a shock, and may help him accomplish just what he set out to do.

“From the beginning Benedict said he wanted his ministry to put the focus on Christ, not on himself as the pope,” David Gibson writes. “Ironically, by resigning, he has grabbed the spotlight, for the moment. But in the long run, he may well have redefined the papacy much as he hoped, and more radically than many expected.”

What next? Gibson and our man on the scene, Alessandro Speciale, give us 12 candidates to succeed B-16.

Here’s the basics of the rather secret process by which one of them — or a surprise candidate — gets chosen, from the Interregnum to “Habemus papam.” (We have a pope.)

And because we want you to know this stuff cold — here’s a Q & A that will teach you everything you need to know about papal elections, from the language of the conclave to the possibility that the next pope could be — gasp — American.

It probably won’t be American Cardinal Roger Mahony. Still, despite the Los Angeles archdiocese sex abuse scandal, he gets to participate in the conclave , reports the AP.

But Pope Benedict XVI doesn’t.

What’s next for B-16? Alessandro Speciale tells us where he’s going and what he’ll do there.

CNN calls on Sister Simone Campbell and Brian Finnerty of Opus Dei to weigh in on the pope’s legacy.

I don’t think either of the above mentioned that Benedict XVI was the first pope on Twitter. Here are the five most popular papal tweets to date.

Here’s the Forward’s take on the pope’s record with the Jews: mixed.

By the way, the pope has a pacemaker. It was a Vatican secret but I guess they feel it’s OK to spill now.

Some students of renowned Buddhist teacher Joshu Sasaki are accusing him of molesting them, saying they were encouraged to believe that touching them was part of their Zen training.

Members of a French Protestant group that saved Jews during the Holocaust are boycotting a Jewish event to memorialize Holocaust victims because it was organized by “pro-Israel” Jews.

In Israel Monday, the sister of comedian Sarah Silverman, Reform Rabbi Susan Silverman, got arrested for praying at the Western Wall, which, she says, has been “hijacked” by very Orthodox Jews.

The Forward profiles “the Jewish porn star next door.”

Speaking of edgy things, a “Rappin’ for Jesus” video by a getting-on-in-years pastor and his wife is getting some puzzled attention. It might be a parody . . . then again.

The president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, our Caleb Bell reports, has apologized for his role in the “debacle” that followed a public reprimand of a pastor in Newtown, Conn., who prayed at an interfaith service.

Remember the Rev. John J. Hunter, who — amidst all sorts of scandals — was reassigned in the fall from First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest black church in Los Angeles? His new San Francisco church just fired him.

The L.A. Times does a neat job of explaining how courts have weighed questions of religious liberty in the past, and how judges are deciding contraception mandate lawsuits today.

Obituary: Richard Twiss, 58, founder of Wiconi International, which seeks to reconcile Native Americans and evangelicals, died this past weekend after suffering a heart attack at Wednesday’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.