VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Following are some facts about&nbsp;former&nbsp;Pope&nbsp;Benedict, who died on Saturday:
-&nbsp;Benedict, the first German&nbsp;pope&nbsp;in 1,000 years, was elected on April 19, 2005 to succeed the widely popular&nbsp;Pope&nbsp;John Paul II, who reigned for 27 years. Cardinals chose him from among their number seeking continuity&nbsp;and&nbsp;what one called "a safe pair of hands". For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was the powerful head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
- An uncompromising theological conservative, Ratzinger left Germany&nbsp;and&nbsp;his&nbsp;post as archbishop of Munich in 1982 to head the CDF.&nbsp;His&nbsp;disciplining of Latin American priests who promoted Marxist-influenced Liberation Theology bestowed him with the sobriquet "God's Rottweiler".
- A weak administrator who admitted a "lack of resolve in governing&nbsp;and&nbsp;decision taking,"&nbsp;his&nbsp;eight-year&nbsp;papacy&nbsp;was marked by missteps&nbsp;and&nbsp;a leaks scandal. He antagonised Muslims by appearing to suggest that Islam was inherently violent. He angered Jews by rehabilitating a Holocaust denier&nbsp;and&nbsp;prompted international dismay by saying the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS only worsened the problem. The 2012 "Vatileaks" scandal helped unravel&nbsp;his&nbsp;papacy. Paolo Gabriele,&nbsp;Benedict's butler, leaked secret documents that revealed corruption&nbsp;and&nbsp;feuding within the Vatican.&nbsp;Benedict&nbsp;said he stood down because bad health prevented him from bearing the full weight of the&nbsp;papacy.
- Child abuse scandals hounded most of&nbsp;his&nbsp;papacy&nbsp;but he is credited with jump-starting the process to discipline or defrock predator priests after a more lax attitude under John Paul II. He ordered an inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the&nbsp;resignation&nbsp;of several bishops. He disciplined the late Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Catholic order the Legionaries of Christ&nbsp;and&nbsp;one of the Church's most notorious predators. The Vatican under&nbsp;Pope&nbsp;John Paul II had failed to take action against Maciel despite overwhelming evidence of&nbsp;his&nbsp;crimes.
- In 2022, an independent report in&nbsp;Benedict's native Germany alleged that he had failed to take action in four cases when he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977&nbsp;and&nbsp;1982. The frail&nbsp;former&nbsp;pope&nbsp;acknowledged in an emotional personal letter that errors had occurred&nbsp;and&nbsp;asked for forgiveness.&nbsp;His&nbsp;lawyers argued in a detailed rebuttal that he was not directly to blame.
- Although he promised to keep a low profile after&nbsp;his&nbsp;retirement,&nbsp;Benedict&nbsp;wrote, gave interviews&nbsp;and, unwittingly or not, became a lightning rod for conservatives who opposed&nbsp;Pope&nbsp;Francis. Some loyalists failed to accept that he had resigned the&nbsp;papacy&nbsp;willingly&nbsp;and&nbsp;continued to consider him "my&nbsp;pope". The "two&nbsp;popes" confusion was compounded because he chose to continue wearing white&nbsp;and&nbsp;be known as "pope&nbsp;emeritus". The resulting polarisation led to calls from both conservatives&nbsp;and&nbsp;liberals for changes in Church law to regulate the functions&nbsp;and&nbsp;status of&nbsp;former&nbsp;popes.
-&nbsp;Benedict&nbsp;produced more than 60 books between 1963, when he was a priest,&nbsp;and&nbsp;2013, when he resigned. "In reality I am more of a professor, a person who reflects&nbsp;and&nbsp;meditates on spiritual questions,"&nbsp;Benedict&nbsp;said after&nbsp;his&nbsp;resignation.
- He played piano&nbsp;and&nbsp;had a preference for Mozart&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bach. As a classicist, he frowned on rock&nbsp;and&nbsp;roll as an "expression of base passions"&nbsp;and&nbsp;once called popular music a "cult of banality".&nbsp;Pope&nbsp;Francis, by contrast, also loves classical music but appreciates Italian pop songs from the early 1960s&nbsp;and&nbsp;also likes tango music from&nbsp;his&nbsp;native Argentina.
&nbsp;
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Edmund Blair&nbsp;and&nbsp;Andrew Heavens)

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Factbox-Former Pope Benedict, his papacy and resignation