Pope Benedict XVI: A modest pontiff who lost his grip

Pope Benedict XVI, who holds his final general audience in St Peter's Square on Wednesday, will be remembered as a traditionalist who gave up on a papacy overshadowed by infighting within the Roman Catholic Church and a toxic sex abuse scandal.

The 85-year-old German pontiff, who said his age prevented him from carrying on in a fast-changing world, is a soft-spoken intellectual who has appeared overwhelmed by turmoil within the Vatican.

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

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's conservative outlook, his nationality and age were all seen as handicaps from the start of his papacy.

"I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," he said in his shock announcement to Vatican prelates in Latin on February 11.

Benedict, the first pope to resign since the Middle Ages, focused his energy on issues dear to his heart, such as the foundations of Christianity and inter-faith relations.

During a trip to the Holy Land in 2009 he called for a two-state solution, and he used a 2012 visit to Lebanon to urge Middle Eastern Christians and Muslims to forge a harmonious, pluralistic society.

The pope also fought to stem growing secularism in the West, and repeatedly stressed family values, fiercely opposing abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage.

In a bid to reach young people he set up a Twitter account in nine languages and called for the Church to be an active presence on social media.

The pope was also an advocate of environmental causes, setting up renewable energy and organic farming at Vatican properties.

He rejected the ordination of women and marriage for priests -- a sensitive issue which came repeatedly to the fore as the priestly sex abuse crisis intensified.

Considered by many to lack the charisma of his predecessor, Benedict committed a series of public relations blunders at the start of his reign that offended Muslims, Jews, gays, native Indians, AIDS activists and scientists.

He angered the Muslim world with a speech in 2006 in which he appeared to endorse the view that Islam is inherently violent, sparking deadly protests in several countries as well as attacks on Christians.

In 2009, the pope offended Jews by inviting a breakaway ultra-conservative Catholic faction back into the fold by conditionally lifting the excommunication of four bishops, including one who denied the scope of the Holocaust.

But he won praise from the world Jewish community for his efforts to restore mutual trust.

On a trip to Africa, the region hardest hit by AIDS, he said condom use could be aggravating the crisis -- though he later became the first pope to suggest the possible use of contraception to avoid spreading the virus.

Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in the southern German region of Bavaria. The son of a policeman, he entered a seminary in 1939, the same year he was required to join the Hitler Youth movement.

He was ordained priest in 1951 and taught at several universities, notably in Bonn and Regensburg, before coming to Rome to work as an advisor to the Second Vatican Council, hammering out modernisation reforms from 1962 to 1965.