He has been experiencing poor health due to his elderly age for some days, according to the Vatican press office, with Pope Francis officially disclosing news of Benedict’s worsening condition earlier this week.

The Vatican announced that Pope Francis will preside over Benedict’s burial on Thursday in St. Peter’s Square.

Joseph Ratzinger, born on April 16, 1927, in Bavaria, Germany, was a trained theologian. Ratzinger was named Pope John Paul II’s successor in 2005, after serving as the Vatican’s leading enforcer of orthodoxy for a quarter-century. He was the 11th century’s first German pope.

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Benedict is remembered as one of the most conservative pontiffs in recent memory, as well as a church leader who, by choosing to resign, marked a new direction for the papacy.

On February 11, 2013, Benedict XVI stunned the world when he declared, “After constantly examining my conscience before God, I have come to the knowledge that my strengths, due to advanced age, are no longer suitable to an appropriate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”

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According to Gerard O’Connell, Vatican correspondent for the Jesuit magazine America, Benedict realized he couldn’t complete his papal duties following a fall during a visit to Mexico in 2012.

“Here is a man who, in prayer, assessed his own boundaries and said, ‘I can go so far, I do not have the physical power to go any further, and thus I resign,'” O’Connell stated, referring to Last Testament: In His Own Words. “He felt at ease knowing he had made the proper decision.”

However, many detractors claimed he made some bad mistakes as Pope.