Pope Benedict: Diehard traditionalist resigns

Pope Benedict XVI, who on Monday announced his intention to resign this month, will be remembered as a staunch defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, a diehard traditionalist and a lightning rod for controversy.

The German intellectual succeeded the long-reigning and popular John Paul II in April 2005 aged 78 after serving nearly a quarter-century as the Church's doctrinal enforcer, earning himself the nickname "God's Rottweiler."

The 85-year-old, who blamed his age for preventing him from continuing at the head of the papacy, will be the first pope to do so in centuries.

"I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me," the head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics said as he would step down on February 28.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's hardline approach, his nationality and his age were all seen as handicaps to his becoming pope, and Benedict had famously said in a 2010 interview that he would resign if he felt he could no longer carry out his papal duties.

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then as pope, he rejected the ordination of women and marriage for priests. He opposed homosexuality and communism and was never afraid of upsetting political sensibilities.

In 1984, he said "communist regimes which came to power in the name of the liberation are one of the disgraces of our times."

Ratzinger has also attacked rock music, calling it "the expression of basic passions".

As pope, Benedict championed Christianity's European roots and showed his conservatism by repeatedly stressing family values and fiercely opposing abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage.

He also reintroduced the long-discarded Latin mass under certain conditions.

Above all, Benedict will be remembered for a disastrous public relations record that got him into hot water with Muslims, Jews, gays, native Indians, Poles, AIDS activists and even scientists.

Memories are still fresh of the fury the German pope unleashed in the Muslim world with a speech in September 2006 in which he appeared to endorse the view of an obscure 14th-century Byzantine emperor that Islam is inherently violent.

The academic lecture sparked violent protests in several countries as well as attacks on Christian targets.

In 2009, the pope struggled to mollify Jews after he invited a breakaway ultra-conservative faction back into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church by lifting the excommunication of four bishops, including one who insists that no one died in Nazi gas chambers.

Just weeks later Benedict added AIDS activists to the list of groups he has angered.