Pope Benedict XVI leads a traditional religious procession through the streets of Rome on May 26, 2005. Photo: Reuters

/ AP, VATICAN CITY

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI — the shy German theologian who tried to reawaken Christianity in a secularized Europe, but would forever be remembered as the first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job — died yesterday.

Benedict stunned the world on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced, in his typical, soft-spoken Latin, that he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference.

His dramatic decision paved the way for the conclave that elected Pope Francis as his successor. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens, an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.

It also set the stage for a reigning pope to celebrate the funeral Mass for a retired one.

The Vatican yesterday announced that Pope Francis would preside over the funeral on Thursday in St Peter's Square.

“With sorrow I inform you that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesia Monastery in the Vatican,” Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said yesterday morning in a statement.

The former cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had never wanted to be pope, planning at age 78 to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria.

Instead, he was forced to follow the footsteps of the beloved St John Paul II and run the church through the fallout of the clerical sex abuse scandal and then a second scandal that erupted when his own butler stole his personal papers and gave them to a journalist .

Being elected pope felt like a “guillotine” had come down on him, he once said.

News source: TAIPEI TIMES