Former Head of the Catholic Church Pope Benedict XVI Dies at 95
GoLocalProv News Team
Former Head of the Catholic Church Pope Benedict XVI Dies at 95
Born in Germany, Benedict had served as the head of the Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013.
Benedict, who was the first pontiff in almost 600 years to resign his position, rather than hold office for life, passed away on Saturday, according to a statement from the Vatican.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” the Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni said.
Pope Francis had said last week his predecessor was “very ill,” according to the BBC.
At the end of the Pope's final audience of the year, he asked people to "pray a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict".
The BBC continued:
Benedict had presided over his predecessor John Paul's funeral Mass. He became the eighth German to become Pope and was known for his conservative, traditionalist views, campaigning against the social activism of liberation theology.
But his papacy was marked by a scandal involving child sexual abuse by priests. Two reports in 2009 detailed the extent of paedophilia and cover-ups within the Irish Church - and it later emerged that almost 400 priests had been defrocked by Benedict in 2011 and 2012.
However, earlier this year the former Pope accepted that errors had been made in handling sexual abuse cases while he was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.