Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dead at 95, Vatican says

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Bavarian-born theologian whose conservative Roman Catholicism earned him the nickname “God’s Rottweiler” and who shocked his flock by suddenly resigning the papacy after just eight years, died Saturday, the Vatican said.

He was 95.

Benedict was the longest-living pope, having surpassed Pope Leo XIII in September 2020, NBC News reports.

“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 Vatican said in a statement on December 31. No cause of death was provided. "Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” the statement said.

The Vatican said Benedict’s remains would be on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica starting Monday for the faithful to pay their final respects.

Benedict, the first pope to voluntarily give up the pontifical reins in nearly 600 years, spent his twilight years living at the Vatican in a refurbished monastery, rarely appearing in public with the man who replaced him, Pope Francis.

But he continued to advise his far more liberal-minded successor in private. His influence was felt in August 2016, when Francis, who had made attempts to reach out to the LGBTQ community, took an unexpectedly hard line against schools’ teaching children that they could choose their gender.

“We must think about what Pope Benedict said — ‘It’s the epoch of sin against God the Creator,’” Francis said at a gathering of Polish bishops.