Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away, the Vatican has announced.
The Vatican making the announcement on Twitter said Benedict XVI passed away on Saturday at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican.
"Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” the tweet said on December 31, 2022.
Pope Benedict XVI who has been ailing for more than a decade has passed away aged 95 years.
He became the first pontiff to resign in six centuries in 2013 and has almost entirely withdrawn from public view since then with photographs of him emerging and showing him to be frail.
Benedict in 2013 said he had resigned from his job as a Pope due to his deteriorating physical and mental health.
His health has been aggravated by his old age.
In April, Benedict's long-time secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, told Vatican News the ex-pope was "physically relatively weak and fragile", but "in good spirits".
Pope Benedict XVI served as the head of the Church and the sovereign of the Vatican City State from April 19, 2005 until his resignation on February 28, 2013.
On December 29, 2022 people in his Bavarian homeland prayed for the retired pontiff, more than 10 years after his resignation.
