Former Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI—the first pope to resign from the role since the 1400s—died Saturday at age 95, according to the Vatican.
Benedict’s body would lie in state Monday in St. Peter’s Basilica, with a funeral to be held on January 5, 2023.earlier this week asking for prayers for Benedict, adding the former pope was “very sick.”Thursday that Benedict rested well over the night and was “absolutely lucid and alert today, although his condition remains serious.”
Bruni said additional information about Benedict’s death would be released later, though he previouslyCrucial Quote “From his time as an expert adviser at the Second Vatican Council onward, there was no question that [Benedict] was a major figure within the Church around the world,” Archbishop Timothy Costelloe
, adding Benedict’s papacy will be “remembered as one of rich teaching” in addition to his “reforms in areas like liturgy and in the handling of child sexual abuse.”Prior to Benedict’s resignation, the last pope to resign from the position was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 after serving for nearly nine years.