VATICAN CITY, Dec. 31 (UPI) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who reigned from 2005 until his unexpected resignation in 2013, died Saturday at his residence following several days of declining health, the Vatican announced. He was 95.
The Holy See Press Office said the Pope Emeritus, born Joseph Ratzinger, died at 9:34 a.m. at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City, which he had chosen as his residence after resigning from the ministry nine years ago.
His body will lay in state in Saint Peter’s Basilica starting Monday. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told reporters Pope Francis will preside over Benedict’s funeral Thursday morning in St. Peter’s Square.
Benedict’s death came four days after Francis shared news of the German prelate’s worsening condition at the end of the last General Audience of the year. Italian news agency ANSA said Benedict’s condition worsened in the days before Christmas and that he had begun to suffer from respiratory problems.
He received the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick in the monastery on Wednesday, Bruni said.
The former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was born at Marktl am Inn, Germany, on April 16, 1927, the son of a police commissioner.
By the age of 17 served briefly in a Nazi antiaircraft unit as a member of the Hitler Youth. Despite his wartime record, Jewish groups and historians agreed the experience was very common for young men of his generation and had little if any significance and suggested no sympathy for the Nazis.
He began studying for the priesthood in 1946 at the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology of Freising and at the University of Munich. He received his priestly ordination in 1951 and a year later he began teaching at the Higher School of Freising.
He went on to teach at Bonn, from 1959 to 1963; at Münster from 1963 to 1966; and at Tübingen from 1966 to 1969, when he honed his reputation as an important Catholic theologian.
In 1977, Pope Paul VI named Benedict Archbishop of Munich and Freising and only months later made him a Cardinal with the priestly title of “Santa Maria Consolatrice al Tiburtino.”
In 1982 he resigned the pastoral governance of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising to concentrate on his role as a Vatican prefect. During this time, he led the project to produce the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. It was officially promulgated by John Paul II in 1992 on the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
In 2002, John Paul approved his election as Dean of the College Cardinals.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected as the 265th Pope on April 19, 2005, following John Paul II’s death. He was the oldest person to be elected Pope since 1730, and had been a Cardinal for a longer period of time than any Pope since 1724.
On Feb. 11, 2013, Benedict announced his decision to resign from the papacy at age 85.
“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” he said.
