Former pope Benedict XVI, who have become the primary pontiff in six centuries to renounce nearly a decade ago, has died on the age of 95.
Benedict, the Pope Emeritus, died on Saturday on the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery withinside the Vatican, a spokesman for the Holy See confirmed.
He had headed the Roman Catholic church from April 2005 to February 2013.
"With sorrow I let you know that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, exceeded away nowadays at 9:34 withinside the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery withinside the Vatican. Further statistics might be furnished as quickly as possible," the spokesman stated in a written statement.
The Vatican has stated his frame will lie in nation in St Peter's Basilica from Monday. His funeral might be held in St Peter's Square on January 5, presided over with the aid of using Pope Francis.
The Vatican has painstakingly complex rituals for what occurs after a reigning pope dies however no publicly regarded ones for a former pope.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis disclosed for the duration of his weekly fashionable target target market that his predecessor became "very sick", and requested for human beings to wish for him.
Benedict became born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, withinside the southern German village of Marktl, near Austria.
He became the primary pontiff in six hundred years to renounce. For almost 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict became additionally the effective head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, then referred to as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
Conservatives withinside the Church have seemed to the previous pope as their preferred bearer and a few ultra-traditionalists even refused to renowned Francis as a valid pontiff.
