system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is it a huge deal that John Boehner stepped down? Something about the Pope?

Maybe I'm missing the whole controversy and reason he's stepping down.
gpt
It's a surprise, because he's the Speaker of the House (the highest position in the House of Representatives, which is half of the U.S. Congress). He's resigning as Speaker and as a congressman.

It very likely has almost nothing to do with the Pope, but it's all about Planned Parenthood.

Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood. The most conservative members of the House are threatening to shut down the whole government until Planned Parenthood is defunded.

The problem is, the whole "shut down the government until we get what we want" thing has been tried before, and it doesn't work. Democrats refuse to give in because it would set a horrible precedent. Last time they tried it, the Republicans gave in and suffered horribly in the polls.

Boehner wants to defund Planned Parenthood too, but he knows they don't have the votes and he knows shutting down the government would be a terrible idea. So he doesn't want to fight this fight. He's smart and pragmatic.

Unfortunately what most likely happened is that the more conservative members threatened to vote him out of the speakership if he didn't go along with shutting down the government. He decided to resign rather than be ousted.

Of course it might not have played out exactly like that. Nobody knows yet, and we may never know. But for sure defunding the government was the main reason.

Note that he isn't resigning until after the vote, though. Possibly he was able to work out a deal to keep the government running in exchange for resigning.