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Bishop of Rome, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Province of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of Peter, Sovereign of the Vatican City State, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, and Supreme Pontiff of the worldwide Catholic Church in union with Rome, including the Eastern Rite Churches in communion with the Holy See.
Benedict XVI speaks ten languages, including German, Italian, English, French, and ecclesiastical Latin. He is also an accomplished pianist. He is the eighth German pope, but only the third (after Clement II and Victor II) to come from the territory of modern-day Germany. He is also the oldest cardinal to become pope since Clement XII in 1730, who, like Ratzinger, was elected at age 78.
In April 2005, he was identified as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine. On April 19, 2005 he was elected as the successor to Pope John Paul II on the second day of the papal conclave.
1927 – Born in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, the son of Joseph Ratzinger and Mary, a barmaid at an inn. Ratzinger senior is a police officer serving in the Bavarian Landespolizei and the German Ordnungspolizei. According to The Sunday Times of London, his father was an “anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move several times.”
1941 – At 14, Ratzinger is drafted in the Hitler Youth. A Nazi Mathematics professor arranged reduced tuition payments for him at seminary, requiring that he attend Hitler Youth activities, but according to Ratzinger, his professor arranged that the young seminary student need not attend those gatherings to receive a scholarship.
1943 – At 16, Ratzinger is drafted into the Flak anti-aircraft corps, first posted to Ludwigsfeld, north of Munich, guarding a BMW aircraft engine plant. He was then sent to Unterföring, northwest of Munich and briefly to Innsbruck and then to Gilching to protect the jet fighter base.
1944 – Drafted to the Reichsarbeitsdienst, where he is posted to the Hungarian border area of Austria, digging for the setting up anti-tank defenses in preparation for the expected Red Army offensive. In December he is drafted into the army at Munich, and after basic infantry training, sent to various posts around the city but never sent to the front. He deserts the army weeks before the German surrender, and is briefly interned in an open-air POW camp near Ulm. He is released on June 19, 1945.
1951 – Ordained priest by Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich, along with his brother Georg. His dissertation is on Saint Augustine, and his Habilitationsschrift (a post-doctoral dissertation) was on Saint Bonaventure. Gains doctorate of theology in 1957 and becomes professor at Freising college in 1958.
1959 – Appointed professor at the University of Bonn, where he remains until 1963, moving then to the University of Münster.
1962 – At the Second Vatican Council, which will run until 1965, Ratzinger serves as chief theological expert to Josef Cardinal Frings of Cologne, Germany.
1966 – Takes up a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he works with Hans Küng. Although Ratzinger was a liberal theological adviser at the Second Vatican Council, he is confirmed in his traditionalist views by the liberal atmosphere of Tübingen and the Marxist leanings of the student movement of the 1960s, with the student movement of 1968 prompting him to defend the faith against secularism. In 1969 he returns to Bavaria, to the University of Regensburg.
1971 – Founds the theological journal Communio, today published in seventeen editions (German, English, Spanish and many others), and one of the most important journals of Catholic thought.
1977 – Appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and in the consistory that June is named a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.
1981 – Appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which was renamed in 1908 by Pope Pius X.
1993 – Appointed cardinal-bishop of Velletri-Segni
1998 – Elected vice-dean of the College of Cardinals, later elected dean in 2002.
2005 – Elected Pope Benedict XVI
http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/
Internet shrine to Ratzinger, the Grand Inquisitor for Mother Rome. The website succinctly sums up the new Pope, whose life as a cardinal was kept “in service to the Truth: correcting theological error, silencing dissenting theologians, and stomping down heresy wherever it may rear its ugly head.”
http://www.ratzinger.it/
Italian fan club site for Ratzinger, containing documents about the new Pope and other links.
http://thepopeblog.blogspot.com/
The Pope Blog, containing good insider news about the Vatican, is maintained by ‘Boney’ and ‘Jimbo’, the former being a student at the University of Notre Dame, and the latter, also a Notre Dame alumnus, is a marketing professional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI
Open-source encyclopaedia that contains everything about Ratzinger, from quotes from John Paul II’s doctrinal watchdog to his history in the Catholic Church.
http://www.communio-icr.com/
Communio, founded by Ratzinger himself, is one of the most influential journals of Catholic thought. |
