Pope Joseph Ratzinger (born
April 16,
1927) is pope of the
Roman Catholic Church. In
1981 Cardinal Ratzinger was appointed prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by
Pope John Paul II, made a Cardinal Bishop of the
episcopal see of Velletri-Segni in
1993, and was elected
Dean of the College of Cardinals in
2002, becoming
titular bishop of
Ostia. One of the most influential men in the
Vatican and a close associate of the late
Pope John Paul II, he has been mentioned by many commentators as a possible successor. He presided over the
funeral of John Paul II and will also preside over the
Conclave in 2005. During the
sede vacante, he is the highest-ranking official in the Catholic Church.
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Early life and works
Ratzinger was born in
Marktl am Inn, in
Bavaria, the son of a police officer who was staunchly anti-Nazi. In
1937 Ratzinger's father retired and settled in the town of
Traunstein. When Ratzinger turned 14 in
1941, he was required by law to join the
Hitler Youth , but according to his biographer John Allen he was not an enthusiastic member. In
1943, at the age of 16 he was, along with the rest of his class, drafted into the
Flak or anti-aircraft corps, responsible for the guarding of a
BMW plant outside Munich. He was then sent for basic infantry training and was posted to
Hungary, where he worked setting up anti-tank defences until he deserted in April
1944 (an offence punishable by death). In
1945 he was briefly held in an Allied POW camp. By June he was released, and he and his brother (
Georg) entered a Catholic seminary. On
June 29,
1951, they were ordained by
Cardinal Faulhaber of
Munich. His dissertation (
1953) was on
Saint Augustine, his
Habilitationsschrift (second dissertation) on
Saint Bonaventure.
Ratzinger was a professor at the
University of Bonn from
1959 until
1963, when he moved to the
University of Münster. In
1966, he took a chair in dogmatic theology at the
University of Tübingen, where he was a colleague of
Hans Küng but was confirmed in his traditionalist views by the liberal atmosphere of Tübingen and the Marxist leanings of the student movement of the 1960s. In
1969 he returned to Bavaria, to the
University of Regensburg.
At the
Second Vatican Council (
1962 –
1965), Ratzinger served as a
peritus or chief theological expert, to Cardinal
Joseph Frings of
Cologne, Germany.
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Communio and later works
In
1972, he founded the
theological journal Communio with
Hans Urs von Balthasar,
Henri de Lubac and others.
Communio, now published in seventeen editions (
German,
English,
Spanish and many others), has become one of the most important
journals of Catholic thought.
In March
1977 Ratzinger was named
archbishop of Munich and
Freising and in the
consistory that June was named a
Cardinal by
Pope Paul VI. Today he is one of only 14 remaining cardinals appointed by Paul VI, and one of only three of those under the age of 80 and so eligible to vote in the conclave of April 2005.
On
November 25,
1981 Pope John Paul II named Ratzinger 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. He resigned the Munich archdiocese in early
1982, became cardinal-bishop of Velletri-Segni in
1993, vice-dean of the
College of Cardinals in
1998, and was elected Dean in
2002. In office, Ratzinger usually takes conservative views on topics such as
birth control and
inter-religious dialogue. He has been closer to John Paul II than any other cardinal, and Ratzinger and the Pope have been called "intellectual bedfellows".
