The Vatican announced Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI passed away Saturday morning at 9:34 a.m. He was 95 years old. He is most immediately remembered outside the Catholic Church for his surprise resignation — the first papal abdication since 1415 — and subsequent life as the world’s first "pope emeritus" in centuries. Benedict was born Joseph Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Bavaria. He came of age in Germany after World War I at the same time the Nazi regime was growing in power.
