World leaders send in condolences
\n VATICAN
\nFormer pope Benedict XVI has died at the age of 95, the Vatican announced Saturday, almost a decade after he became the first pontiff to resign in six centuries.
\n\u201cWith sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,\u201d Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.
\nThe German pope emeritus, whose birth name was Joseph Ratzinger, had been living a quiet life in a former convent inside the Vatican grounds since his shock decision to step down in February 2013.
\nHis health had been declining for a long time, but the Vatican revealed on Wednesday that his situation had worsened, while his successor Pope Francis called for Catholics worldwide to pray for him.
\nHis death brings to an end an unprecedented situation in which two \u201cmen in white\u201d (Benedict and Francis) had co-existed within the walls of the tiny city state.
\nWhile there is no rulebook for former popes, Benedict\u2019s funeral is expected to be at the Vatican, presided over by Francis.
\nIn 2005 the body of John Paul II, the last pope to die, lay in state before a funeral mass in St Peter\u2019s Square attended by one million people, including heads of state.
\nBenedict had almost entirely withdrawn from public view, his health reported to be shaky and the few photographs that emerged of him exposing his frailty.
\nBack in 2013, he had cited his declining physical and mental health in his decision to become the first pope since 1415 to give up the job as head of the worldwide Catholic Church.
\nBenedict was a brilliant theologian but his papacy was beset by Vatican in-fighting and a scandal over clerical sexual abuse of children that rocked the Catholic Church the world over, in which he was criticised for a lack of leadership.
\nThe abuse scandal overshadowed his final months after a damning report for the German church in January 2022 accused him of personally failing to stop four predatory priests in the 1980s while archbishop of Munich.
\nHe denied wrongdoing and the Vatican strongly defended his record in being the first pope to apologise for the scandals, who expressed his own \u201cdeep remorse\u201d and met with victims.
\nBorn on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in Bavaria, Benedict was 78 when he succeeded the long-reigning and popular John Paul II in April 2005, the first German pope of the modern era.
\nHe later said his election felt \u201clike the guillotine\u201d.
\nUnlike his successor Pope Francis, a Jesuit who delights in being among his flock, Benedict was a conservative intellectual dubbed \u201cGod\u2019s Rottweiler\u201d in a previous post as chief doctrinal enforcer.
\nHis papacy was dogged by controversy, from comments that angered the Muslim world to a money-laundering scandal at the Vatican bank and a personal humiliation when, in 2012, his butler leaked secret papers to the media.
\nDespite saying he would live \u201chidden from the world\u201d after his resignation, he repeatedly intervened on key issues facing the Church through books, interviews and articles.
\nIn January 2020, he expressed his opposition to allowing priests to marry. A year earlier, he blamed clerical abuse scandals on the 1960s sexual revolution and a collapse in faith in the West.
\nIn an interview in March 2021, he said \u201cthere is only one pope\u201d, but acknowledged \u201cfanatical\u201d supporters who refused to accept his resignation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
World leaders send in condolences VATICAN Former pope Benedict XVI has died at the age of 95, the Vatican announced Saturday, almost a decade after he became the first pontiff to resign in six centuries. \u201cWith sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-304690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n