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For successive popes to say i'm 80 years old, i'm not going to stay until i fall down dead in this office. that's thinking more like a ceo than anything else. >> a lighting from the helicopter, francis thanks the pilots and then his predecessor goes toward him to embrace him. this is a historic moment. >> it's not any kind of precedent. benedict's resignation, he really did do it voluntarily. >> narrator: today pope kbbenedt xvi lives in a quiet apartment in the vatican. he has passed to pope francis, leaving the biggest gift behind. >> the biggest thing that happened is pope benedict resignin...

Elect him pope. >> in the 13th century you had great succession of reforming popes, politicians, but this is not how a pope should be. so what they did was elect a pope who was as unworldly as you could possibly hope for, a hermit. they called him celestine, the heavenly one. >> celestine v does not want to be pope. he'd rather be praying off alone by himself, and he goes to do this papacy rather reluctantly. >> it is not super clear that he even exactly knew what was going on. it is not clear how sharp mentally he was. >> celestine v was just hopeless. couldn't run the church at all. >> after...

1294, king philip iv of france is determined to reassert his power over the papacy. but the new hope, boniface iv refuses to give in to the greed even monarch. >> philip iv comes to a time when warfare is brought by purchasing armies. he needs more money. >> the church is very wealthy. >> so when bon bon dies, king philip ensures that a pope who will give him what he wants is elected. >> expressed very clearly to the college of cardinals that he preferred this particular french candidate. it wasn't an easy election, but ultimately the french side was strong enough to win. >> a french prelate w...

And for having banquets that went on for days and for spending church money in order to take care of themselves. >> but the avignon papacy worked. it is in southern france. it's of more central to europe than the italian peninsula. it was efficient. it had a decent bureaucracy. there's actually a good case for the avignon papacy. a big problem though -- it doesn't have the tomb of peter, and what's the point of a pope who doesn't sit at the tomb of peter? >> despite being miles from the spiritual foundation of the papacy, pope clement v remains in france and continues to lead the church under ...

Celestine into siphoning him church money and land. but after celestine's resignation, the new pope, boniface viii, is not so easily manipulated. >> when boniface viii became pope, he saw the french influence as something that had gone way, way out of bounds and so he positioned himself as the anti-france pope. so phillip iv and boniface had these very real clash of powers. boniface began to generate some very, very harsh language about the power of the papacy. here is a letter that he wrote to philip iv of france. he said, listen, son -- literally, that's how he begins it. "son, god has set u...