Pope Benedict XVI: Timeline of a Pontiff

Regarded as a steady pair of hands when elected, his papacy was a time of controversies

Joseph Ratzinger as a schoolboy in Aschau am Inn in 1932. AFP

Joseph Ratzinger, 10, with classmates in Aschau am Inn, Bavaria, where he went to school from 1932 to 1937. AFP

Joseph Ratzinger as a German Air Force assistant in 1943. AFP

Ratzinger, right, and his brother Georg, left, after their ordination in 1951 with his sister Maria, his mother Maria and his father Josef. AFP

Ratzinger during an open-air mass in 1952. AFP

Joseph Ratzinger, a professor of theology, with Cologne's Cardinal Joseph Frings, who took him to the council at the Vatican as an adviser in the early 1960s. AFP

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1977 in Vatican City. AFP

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger with Mother Teresa at the 85th German Catholics Days in Freiburg in September 1978. AFP

Archbishop of Munich and Freising Josef Ratzinger, right, bids farewell to Munich to become Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. AFP

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1994 signing an autograph during the 1,240th anniversary of the city of Fulda, Germany. AFP

Cardinal Ratzinger, centre, his brother Georg, the Kapellmeister of the Cathedral of Regensburg, and their sister Maria Ratzinger in Munich. AFP

Cardinal Ratzinger, centre, arrives to lead the funeral mass for Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square at the Vatican City in 2005. AFP

Joseph Ratzinger, the new Pope Benedict XVI, after being elected the 265th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, April 19, 2005. AFP

Pope Benedict XVI on the balcony of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican after being elected by the conclave of cardinals. AFP

Pope Benedict XVI at the traditional weekly general audience in St Peter's square at the Vatican, December 7, 2005. AFP

Pope Benedict XVI blesses the faithful in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican, December 25, 2007. Reuters

Pope Benedict greets Abdul Aziz al-Ghurair, speaker of the Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates, at the Vatican, October 22, 2008. Reuters

Pope Benedict is welcomed by Jordan's King Abdullah and his wife Queen Rania at Amman airport, May 8, 2009. Reuters

Pope Benedict in front of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City, May 12, 2009. Reuters

Pope Benedict and Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah during a private meeting at the Vatican, May 6, 2010. Reuters

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip with the Pope at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, September 16, 2010. Reuters

Pope Benedict arrives in Havana, Cuba, March 27, 2012. AFP

Pope Benedict XVI arrives for a meeting with youths at Bkerke in Harissa, near Beirut, September 15, 2012. Reuters

A mass held by Pope Benedict in Beirut, September 16, 2012. Reuters

On February 11, 2013, Pope Benedict announced that he would resign on February 28, the first pope in centuries to do so. AFP

The former pope arrives for the canonisation ceremony of popes John XXIII and John Paul II at the Vatican, April 27, 2014. Reuters

Emeritus Pope Benedict, left, as Pope Francis arrives to lead a mass to create 20 new cardinals, February 14, 2015. Reuters

Pope Francis, left, with Benedict at the Vatican, June 28, 2017. AFP

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at Munich Airport before his departure to Rome, June 22, 2020. Reuters

A close ally of the long-reigning Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI was the first German pope in 1,000 years and, by retiring almost a decade before his death, Benedict bequeathed an unprecedented situation of two living bishops of Rome.

He was elected on April 19, 2005, after serving nearly 25 years as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the heart of the church's bureaucracy.

Despite his reputation as a steady force and safe pair of hands, the papacy was regularly caught up in controversies. For Benedict, this was a deeply arduous experience.

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, which led to the election of Pope Francis in 2013.

Despite this, at an earlier stage of his career he was referred to as God's Rottweiler for his tough disciplinary decisions.

The first serious backlash during his time on the papal throne came in 2006, when he visited his Bavarian hometown, only to spark protests from the Muslim world with a speech quoting a derogatory comment about Islam from a 14th century Byzantine emperor.

After it became clear his lecture had antagonised Muslims, Benedict said he was “deeply sorry” about reaction to his speech, which he said was misunderstood.

Months later, he undertook a papal trip to Turkey and prayed with Istanbul’s grand mufti facing Makkah at the city’s Sultan Ahmet mosque.

In 2008, Benedict changed a Latin prayer for Good Friday services by traditionalist Catholics, deleting a reference to Jews and their “blindness” but still calling for them to accept Jesus.

The following year, he angered Jews by rehabilitating a Holocaust denier as he lifted the excommunication of four ultra-traditionalist bishops.

It was the long litany of sexual abuses by the clerics that bore down on his papacy. In Benedict's defence, he set up a more rigourous process than allowed by his predecessor.

He disciplined the late Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Catholic order the Legionaries of Christ and one of the Church's most notorious predators. The Vatican under John Paul II had failed to take action against Maciel despite evidence of his crimes.

The anger over the legacy of abuse spilt over in countries that were bastions of the faith. In 2011, the Vatican recalled its ambassador to the Republic of Ireland following a rebuke of the Holy See by the Irish Parliament following a report that accused church authorities of covering up sexual abuse.

Throughout 2012, Benedict's papacy was shaken by a scandal referred to as Vatileaks, in which leaked documents show infighting among Benedict's aides and general dysfunction at the heart of the Curia, the church's central administration.

In February 2013, Benedict announced his resignation, saying he no longer had the physical and mental strength to run the church. He later moved to a former convent inside the Vatican gardens, with his secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein.

As an uncompromising theological conservative and choosing to continue to wear papal white, Benedict became something of a rallying point for traditionists.

Pope Francis, a Jesuit imbued with the social justice and folk traditions of the Latin American church, cut a very different figure and his opponents rallied to an idealised image of his predecessor.