Pope Benedict XVI Turns 81
German Who speaks Seven Languages is Holy Father
Joseph Ratzinger did not want to be Pope. He prayed not to be selected. But God's will was different. He was elected Pope in 2005.
Pope Benedict XVI will turn 81 on Wednesday April 16. On his birthday he will meet with United States President George Bush and First Lady Laura Bush on the south lawn at the White House and then meet privately with President Bush. At 5.30 p.m. he will attend a private prayer service at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and meet with U.S. bishops.
Pope Benedict speaks seven languages and was instrumental in fast-tracking the late Pope John Paul 11 to sainthood. Still, he had insisted that he did not want to replace his predecessor, and had even prayed not to be selected. But he was chosen and became The Holy Father to a world of Catholics. Pope Benedict XVI is due to visit America next week.
Who is Pope Benedict XVI?
Joseph Alois Ratzinger was born on Holy Saturday in Marktl, Germany, on April 16, 1927. His father was a policeman. He hated the Nazi regime and because of his open criticisms of their policies the family was forced to move in 1932 to Auschau am Inn. When Joseph was 10, they settled in Hufschulag. He entered the minor seminary in Traunstein at age 12.
While in the seminary he witnessed the Nazis beating the Parish Priest before Mass. His faith in the church and God strengthened in the wake of their brutality. And when he turned 14, in 1941, according to a legal requirement enforced by the Nazis in 1939, he joined the Hitler Youths. This was a controversial issue when he eventually became Pope in 2005.
When the war started he temporarily halted his studies and resumed them again in 1945. Two years later he entered the theology school, Herzogliches Georgianum. On June 29, 1951, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Joseph and his brother George were ordained at the Cathedral in Freising.
Joseph Ratzinger received his Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Munich in 1953, with a thesis titled, “The People and the House of God in Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church.” He took his first chair as a professor of Fundamental Theology at the University of Bonn and in 1963 accepted a teaching position at the University of Munster. Three years later, he took his second chair in Dogmatic Theology at the University of Tbingen.
Between 1962 and 1965 Ratzinger served as chief theological advisor to Cardinal Josef Frings of Kln, Germany, during all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council. He was a member of the International Theological Commission of the Holy See from 1969 to 1980. In 1969 he returned to Bavaria and began teaching at the University of Regensburg, where he was later appointed Dean and then Vice President. In 1972, he was a founding member of the quarterly Catholic Theological Journal Communio.
Ratzinger’s journey to the Vatican began as a youth dedicated to the church. His growth and ambition in the service of God was an inspiration to many when, as a young priest, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising by Pope Paul VI on March 24, 1977. On May 28, the same year, he was ordained to the Episcopal Order, the next month he was made a Cardinal.
In 1980 Pope John Paul II appointed him to chair the special Synod on the Laity. He was later appointed the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, making him President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the International Theological Commission. On April 5, 1993, he was transferred to the order of Cardinal Bishops. In 1998 he became Vice Dean for the Sacred College of Cardinals and presided over funeral masses for Pope John Paul II. He presided at the Mass for the Election of the Supreme Pontiff at St. Peter's Basilica.
