Former pope Benedict XVI, who became the first pontiff in six centuries to resign almost a decade ago, has died at the age of 95.
Benedict, the Pope Emeritus, died on Saturday at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican, a spokesman for the Holy See confirmed.
"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. Further information will be provided as soon as possible," the spokesman said in a written statement.
Benedict had headed the Roman Catholic Church from April 2005 to February 2013.
Bells tolled in Rome as news of his death, which followed a rapid decline in his health over Christmas, spread to the faithful on an unusually warm winter's day.
Many went to pray in St Peter's Square on hearing the news.
"Now we will only have one pope. I must say that Pope Ratzinger was a charismatic pope, humble but above all a great theologian," said French tourist Emilie Gaillard, using Benedict's family name.
The Vatican has said his body will lie in state in St Peter's Basilica from Monday. His funeral will be held in St Peter's Square on January 5, presided over by Pope Francis.
The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but no publicly known ones for a former pope.
Pope Francis, in his first public comments since the death of his predecessor, called Benedict a noble, kind man who was a gift to the church and the world.
He spoke in the homily of a previously planned New Year's Eve vespers of thanksgiving in St Peter's Basilica.
"It is with emotion that we remember his person, so noble, so kind. And we feel in our heart such gratitude, gratitude to God for having gifted him to the church and the world," Pope Francis said.
Earlier this week, he had disclosed during his weekly general audience that the pope emeritus was "very sick", and asked for people to pray for him.
Benedict was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in the southern German village of Marktl, close to Austria.
He was the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict was also the powerful head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, then known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
Conservatives in the Church have looked to the former pope as their standard bearer and some ultra-traditionalists even refused to acknowledge Francis as a legitimate pontiff.
World leaders pay their respects
European heads of state were swift in sending their condolences for Benedict, who was the first German pope in 1,000 years.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Benedict wrote on social media the world had lost a "formative figure of the Catholic Church".
"As a 'German' #Pope, #BenedictXVI was a special church leader for many, not only in this country. The world is losing a formative figure of the Catholic Church, an argumentative personality and a clever theologian. My thoughts are with Pope Francis," he wrote.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the Pope Emeritus as a man who would forever be remembered.
"Benedict XVI was a giant of faith and reason. A man in love with the Lord who put his life at the service of the Universal Church and has spoken, and will continue to speak, to the hearts and minds of people with the spiritual, cultural and intellectual depth of his Magisterium," she wrote.
"A Christian, a pastor, a theologian: a great man whom history will not forget."
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was raised in the Catholic church, wrote on Twitter he was "saddened to hear" of Benedict's passing.
"May he rest in eternal peace," Mr Albanese said in his tweet.
'Seas were rough' for Benedict's reign
A piano-playing professor and formidable theologian, Benedict was by his own admission a weak leader who struggled to impose himself on the opaque Vatican bureaucracy and stumbled from crisis to crisis during his eight-year reign.
Benedict repeatedly apologised for the Church's failure to root out sexual abuse of children by clergy, and although he was the first pope to take serious action against abuse, the efforts failed to halt a rapid decline in church attendance in the West, especially in Europe.
In 2022, an independent report in his native Germany alleged that Benedict had failed to take action in four abuse cases when he was Archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982.
Shaken by the report, he acknowledged in an emotional personal letter that errors had occurred and asked for forgiveness. His lawyers argued in a detailed rebuttal that he was not directly to blame.
Victims groups said the couched response squandered an opportunity from a scandal that rattled the Church worldwide.
Benedict will be best remembered for shocking the world on February 11, 2013, when he announced in Latin that he was resigning, telling cardinals he was too old and frail to lead an institution with more than 1.3 billion members.
It was always going to be tough following his charismatic predecessor Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, and Benedict admitted to difficulties in an emotional farewell.
"There were moments of joy and light, but also moments that were not easy," Benedict told his last general audience, a gathering of more than 150,000 people.
"There were moments … when the seas were rough and the wind blew against us and it seemed that the Lord was sleeping."
