Tiny Muskens, the controversial 77-year-old former bishop of Breda, has died at a Benedictine monastry in Teteringen where he has lived since retiring six years ago.

Muskens asked the pope to relieve him of his duties on health grounds in 2007. He had suffered several strokes.

Muskens, who has not always toed the official church line on birth control and AIDs, is best known for stating that a poor person could steal bread in order to survive. ‘I want to represent the underbelly of society,’ he said in 1996.