Image Credit: Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images 
ROME — Benedict XVI, the 265th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, died peacefully in his bed Saturday morning, the Vatican announced.
“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,” wrote Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni in a statement. “Further information will be provided as soon as possible.”
On Wednesday, Pope Francis appealed for special prayers for Benedict, warning that the former pontiff was “seriously ill,” following the former pope’s temporary loss of consciousness on Tuesday evening.
Benedict succeeded Saint John Paul II in leading the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, reigning from April 19, 2005 until his resignation on February 28, 2013. The German pope shocked the world when he announced his intention to resign, the first pope to do so in some 600 years.
“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to adequately exercising the Petrine ministry,” he told the cardinals, adding that he was aware that his ministry must be accomplished “not only with deeds and words, but no less with prayer and suffering.”