Rvin88, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Former Pope Benedict XVI has died at the age of 95. He died nearly a decade after he stood down because of flagging health.
He led the Catholic Church for fewer than eight years until, in 2013, he became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.
Benedict spent his final years at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery within the walls of the Vatican where he passed away at 09:34 (08:34 GMT) on Saturday.
His successor Pope Francis will lead the funeral on 5 January.
According to the information coming from the Vatican, the body of the Pope Emeritus will be placed in St Peter’s Basilica from 2 January for “the greeting of the faithful”.
Bells rang out from Munich cathedral and a single bell was heard ringing from St Peter’s Square in Rome after the former pope’s death was announced.
Tributes have started pouring in for the departed former Pope.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the former pope “a great theologian whose UK visit in 2010 was an historic moment for both Catholics and non-Catholics throughout our country”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Pope Benedict “worked with soul and intelligence for a more fraternal world” and said his thoughts went out to Catholics in France and around the world.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Pope Benedict “was a giant of faith and reason”.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said for many, not only in Germany, Pope Benedict was “a formative figure of the Catholic Church, a controversial personality and a clever theologian”.
