VATICAN CITY — The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, who last week renounced what for nearly 600 years has been a lifelong office, will reverberate for years to come and could change the nature of the modern papacy, starting with the election of his successor.

Vatican experts and some church leaders said that Benedict’s decision holds the potential to set limits for future popes, to make them more subject to pressure from critics and to feed the perception that they are not just spiritual leaders of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics but chief executives managing the vast multinational conglomerate that is the church, with its franchises around the globe and headquarters in the Vatican state.

“If Jack Welch looked like this wonderful 85-year-old gentleman and he stepped down, wouldn’t you say, ‘Bravo, Jack?’ ” said Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the retired archbishop of New York, who called Benedict’s decision the sensible and logical thing to do. He was one of many cardinals to rally publicly around Benedict’s choice, a radical step for an otherwise deeply conservative theologian.

Now as 115 cardinals gather here to elect a new pope, with initial meetings on Monday to decide the conclave’s date, Benedict’s decision confronts them, and will confront future popes, with a host of new factors.