Last week, former Navy recruit and Speaker of the House John Boehner resigned from his position in Congress. His resignation, which will officially take effect at the end of October, occurred at a critical time when Congress is trying to hash out a budget resolution for the upcoming year.

Boehner’s sudden resignation was connected to his emotional reaction to Pope Francis’ congressional address, an event the devoutly Catholic speaker had been hoping to orchestrate since taking office. In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Boehner said the Pope gave him clarity.

“I think [Pope Francis] helped clear the picture … I never related one of those instances with the other, but clearly by Friday night it was pretty obvious to me,” Boehner said.

Divine intervention was not the only reason Boehner felt now was the time to leave Congress. Boehner told reporters that in-fighting between Republicans made his job nearly impossible, citing the disastrous government shutdown in 2013.

“The Bible says beware of false prophets,” Boehner said. “And there are people out there, you know, spreading noise about how much can get done. I mean this whole notion that we’re going to shut down the government to get rid of Obamacare in 2013 – this plan never had a chance. But over the course of the August recess in 2013 and in September, a lot of my Republican colleagues who knew this was a fool’s errand — really, they were getting all this pressure from home to do this.”

Boehner said that his main job as Speaker and a congressman was to “protect the institution.” When he realized he could no do that due to leadership turmoil, he decided it was time to leave public office behind.

While Boehner was only able to give eight weeks of his life to the military thanks to a bad back, he has devoted 25 years to Congress.