An inexorable media dynamic occurs whenever a major public figure dies: During the gap between the death and the funeral, journalists scramble to fill column inches and airwaves with something — anything, really — to sustain interest in the story until there’s actual news to report.

A quiet hush covered the vast expanse of St. Peter’s Square even though it was filled with thousands of people slowly winding their way around the colonnade into St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their last respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI.

In 1997, American journalist and Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny published a biography of Pope John Paul II, now St. John Paul, titled Man of the Century. By that, Kwitny didn’t necessarily mean the Polish pope was the greatest man of the 20th century, but that no one’s life story better recapitulated the great dramas of the time, from the unraveling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire his father had served as an army officer to the rise and fall of both Nazism and Soviet Communism and the emergence of a newly globalized world.

In accordance with Pope Benedict XVI’s wishes, his funeral and moments of prayer surrounding it will be simple, according to the Vatican press office.

Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn has asked the diocese to join him in prayer for the repose of the soul of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, remembering him as an intellectual and holy man who “deeply loved God and served the Church generously throughout his whole life.” 

Here are some important events in the life of Pope Benedict XVI.

Here is a collection of notable quotes from Pope Benedict XVI from homilies, documents, messages and speeches from 2005 to 2013, the years he served as pope. They are grouped according to subject.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI, who had an impressive record as a teacher and defender of the basics of Catholic faith, is likely to go down in history books as the first pope in almost 600 years to resign.