Former Pope Benedict was first pontiff to resign in 600 years.
Pope Benedict the Sixteenth died Saturday at the age of 95, the Vatican announced, almost a decade after he became the first pontiff to resign in six centuries.
Here are five facts on Pope Benedict XVI and his papacy:
- Benedict, the first German pope in 1,000 years, was elected on April 19, 2005, to succeed the widely popular Pope John Paul II, who reigned for 27 years. Cardinals chose him from among their number, seeking continuity and what one called "a safe pair of hands." For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was the powerful head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
- Child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy, but he is credited with jump starting the process to discipline or defrock predatory priests after a more lax attitude under John Paul II. He ordered an inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops. He excommunicated the late Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Catholic order the Legionaries of Christ and one of the church's most notorious predators.The Vatican under Pope John Paul II had failed to take action against Maciel despite overwhelming evidence of his crimes.
- He played piano and had a preference for Mozart and Bach. As a classicist, he frowned on rock and roll as an "expression of base passions" and once called popular music a "cult of banality." Pope Francis, by contrast, also loves classical music but also appreciates Italian pop songs from the early 1960s and also likes tango music from his native Argentina.
- Benedict produced more than 60 books between 1963, when he was a priest, and 2013, when he resigned. "In reality, I am more of a professor, a person who reflects and meditates on spiritual questions," Benedict said after his resignation.
- He played piano and had a preference for Mozart and Bach. As a classicist, he frowned on rock and roll as an "expression of base passions" and once called popular music a "cult of banality." Pope Francis, by contrast, also loves classical music but also appreciates Italian pop songs from the early 1960s and also likes tango music from his native Argentina.
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