Pope Benedict XVI

Religious Leader

Pope Benedict XVI was born in Marktl, Bavaria, Germany on April 16th, 1927 and is the Religious Leader. At the age of 95, Pope Benedict XVI biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
April 16, 1927
Nationality
Germany
Place of Birth
Marktl, Bavaria, Germany
Death Date
Dec 31, 2022 (age 95)
Zodiac Sign
Aries
Profession
Catholic Priest, Philosopher, Pianist, Religious Writer, Theologian, University Teacher
Pope Benedict XVI Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 95 years old, Pope Benedict XVI physical status not available right now. We will update Pope Benedict XVI's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

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Weight
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Pope Benedict XVI Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
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Education
University of Munich (BA, MA, PhD)
Pope Benedict XVI Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Not Available
Children
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Dating / Affair
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Parents
Joseph Ratzinger Sr., Maria Peintner
Pope Benedict XVI Life

Pope Benedict XVI (16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the head of the Church and sovereign of Vatican City State from 2005 to 2013.

Benedict's aspope election took place in 2005 papal conclave following Pope John Paul II's assassination of Benedict.

On his resignation, Benedict renamed him "pope emeritus" in his native Bavaria. Ratzinger had resigned as a priest in 1951, but was made a full professor in 1958.

He was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and Cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, an unusual promotion for someone with no pastoral experience.

He was elected Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981, making him one of the Roman Curia's most influential dicasteries.

He served as Dean of the College of Cardinals from 2002 to his election as Pope.

Early life: 1927–1951

Joseph Alois Ratzinger was born on April 16th, 1927, at Schulstraße 11, at 8:30 in the morning in his parents' house in Marketl, Bavaria, Germany, at the age of 16. On the same day, he was baptized. He is Joseph Ratzinger Sr., a police officer, and Maria Ratzinger (née Peintner); his grand-uncle was Georg Ratzinger, a German priest-politician. His mother's family came from South Tyrol (now in Italy). Georg Ratzinger, Benedict's elder brother, was a Catholic priest and served as the former director of the Regensburger Domspatzen choir. Maria Ratzinger, a boy who never married, was in charge of Cardinal Ratzinger's household until her death in 1991.

Ratzinger, a five-year-old boy, was in a crowd of children who welcomed visiting Cardinal Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber of Munich, with flowers. He revealed later that day that he wanted to be a cardinal, despite the cardinal's distinctive garb. He attended the primary school in Aschau am Inn, which was renamed in his honour in 2009.

Ratzinger's relatives, especially his father, resented the Nazis, and his father's resistance to Nazism culminated in demotions and family violence. Ratzinger was accepted into the Hitler Youth after his 14th birthday in 1941, but he was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings, according to his brother. During the Nazi regime's 1941 rise to Nazi eugenics, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was kidnapped by the Nazi regime and murdered. He was sent by Luftwaffenhelfer in 1943, when he was still in seminary. Ratzinger was later trained in the German infantry. When the Allied front got closer to his post in 1945, he returned to his family's house in Traunstein after his unit had failed to exist, just as American troops established a headquarters in the Ratzinger family. As a German soldier, he was interned in a war camp prisoner but was released a few months later at the end of the war in May 1945.

In November 1945, Ratzinger and his brother Georg arrived at Saint Michael Seminary in Traunstein, and later studied at the Ludwig-Maximilian University's Ducal Georgianum (Herzogliches Georgianum). Both were ordained in Freising, by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Munich, the same man he had encountered as a child. "As the elderly Archbishop laid his hands on me, a little bird, perhaps a lark, swarmed up from the altar and began a jolly song," Ratzinger recalled.

In Augustine's Doctrine of the Church, Ratzinger's 1953 dissertation was on St. Augustine and was titled The People and the House of God. On Bonaventure, his habilitation (which qualified him for a professorship) was complete. It was established in 1957 and he became a professor at Freising College in 1958.

Ratzinger was greatly inspired by the words of Italian Romano Guardini, who taught in Munich from 1946 to 1951, and later at the University of Munich. Both these thinkers, who would later become central figures in Christianity, were preoccupied with rediscovering the essential in Christianity: Guardini wrote his 1938 "The Essence of Christianity," while Ratzinger wrote "Introduction to Christianity," three decades later in 1968. Guardini influenced many in the Catholic social-democratic tradition, including the Communion and Liberation campaign in the New Evangelization period under Pope John Paul II's papacy. Ratzinger wrote an introduction to a 1996 reissue of Guardini's 1954 "The Lord" series.

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Pope Benedict XVI Career

Pre-papal career

In 1951, Ratzinger became a chaplain at the parish St. Martin, Moosach, in Munich. Ratzinger was a professor at the University of Bonn in 1959, with his inaugural lecture on "The God of Faith and Philosophy." He migrated to Münster University in 1963. He served as a perpetus (theological consultant) to Cardinal Frings of Cologne during this period (1962-1965). During the council's tenure as a reformer, he was regarded as a hero of theology, collaborated with scholars such as Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx. Ratzinger became a devotee of Karl Rahner, a well-known academic theologian of Nouvelle Théologie and a supporter of church reform.

Ratzinger was appointed to a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he worked with Hans Küng. In his book Introduction to Christianity, Pope Benedict argued that the pope has the right to hear voices inside the church before making a decision, and he denied the centrality of the papacy. During this period, he distanced himself from the atmosphere of Tübingen and Marxist leanings of the 1960s student movement, which culminated in a series of protests and riots in May and May 1968, culminating in a series of protests and riots. Ratzinger began to see these and other changes (such as a declining appreciation for power among his students) as a result of a departure from traditional Catholic teachings. Despite his reformist bent, his views have increasingly weighed in with liberal theological schools' liberal interpretations. Rev. David Frost invited him to speak at a Methodist Church of England. Theodore Hesburgh wanted to join the University of Notre Dame's theology faculty, but decided against it on the grounds that his English was not strong enough.

Some voices, including Küng, see this as a step toward conservatism, although Ratzinger himself said in a 1993 interview, "I see no change in my views as a theologian [over the years]" in his views. Ratzinger continued to promote the Second Vatican Council's activities, including Nostra aetate, the document on behalf of other faiths, ecumenism, and the abolition of the right to worship. Ratzinger spelled out the Catholic Church's position on other faiths in the 2000 document Dominus Iesus, which also addresses the Catholic way to participate in "ecumenical dialogue." Ratzinger wrote articles in the Reformist theological journal Concilium during his time at Tübingen University, but he increasingly chose less satisfaction with the magazine's topics, such as Küng and Schillebeeckx.

In 1969, he returned to Bavaria, to the University of Regensburg, and co-founded Communio with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Walter Kasper, and others. Communio, which is now available in seventeen languages, including German, English, and Spanish, has risen to become a popular journal of contemporary Catholic theological thought. He was one of the journal's most prolific contributors up until his election as pope. He said in 1976 that the Augsburg Confession might possibly be recognised as a Catholic statement of faith. Many of Benedict's former students, notably Christoph Schönborn, became his confidantes, and a number of his former students regularly meet for discussions. He served as Vice President of the University of Regensburg from 1976 to 1977. He was appointed a Prelate of Honour of His Holiness on May 26, 1976.

Ratzinger was ordained Archbishop of Munich and Freising on March 24, 1977. From 3 John 8, he adopted Cooperatores Veritatis (Co-Workers of the Truth), a term he refers to in his autobiographical work, Milestones. By Pope Paul VI, he was named Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria Consolatrice al Tiburtino on the following 27 June. He was one of only 14 remaining cardinals named by Paul VI, and one of only three of those under the age of 80, by the time of the 2005 Conclave. Of all of them, only he and William Wakefield Baum were able to attend the conclave.

On the 25th of November 1981, Pope John Paul II, following Franjo eper's retirement, appointed Ratzinger as the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith. The historical Roman Inquisition was held on November 25th. He resigned from his job in Munich in early 1982, and as a result, he resigned his position. He was promoted within the College of Cardinals to become Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni in 1993 and 2002, and dean in 2002. Just a year after its foundation in 1990, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger joined the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg/Austria in 1991.

Ratzinger defended and reiterated Catholic doctrine, as well as teaching on topics such as birth control, homosexuality, and inter-religious dialogue. Leonardo Boff, the ologian, was banned, for example, while others, such as Matthew Fox, were censured. Other topics had prompted condemnation or revocation of teaching rights: for example, some of Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello's posthumous writings were included in a note. Both Ratzinger and the congregation viewed several of them, particularly the later ones, as lacking a sense of religious indeterminism (i.e., Christ was "one master alongside others"). Dominus Iesus, a Catholic Church spokesman who was a jubilee year 2000, reiterated several recent "unpopular" beliefs, including the Catholic Church's assertion that "salvation is found in no one else," because there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Many Protestant churches were angered by the paper's assertion that they are not really churches but rather "ecclesial groups."

Ratzinger's 2001 letter De delictis gravioribus clarified the secrecy of internal church investigations, as set in the 1962 document Crimen Sollicitation, into allegations of certain offences, including sexual assault, were denied. During the sex exploitation cases, this became a point of contention. Ratzinger had been the man in charge of enforcing the law for 20 years.

Although bishops retained the secrecy only internally and did not prohibit inspection by civil law enforcement, the letter was often read as promoting a cover-up. Later, as pope, he was charged with plotting to cover up three boys' molestation in Texas, but he later sought and obtained diplomatic immunity from responsibility.

Ratzinger, the prefect, informed the lay faithful and clergy that Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô th Thrc had been excommunication latae sententiae for illicit episcopal consecrations in absence of apostolic authority on March 12, 1983. Ratzinger, who was 70, begged Pope John Paul II for permission to leave the Congregation of Faith and become a librarian in the Vatican Secret Archives, but Pope John Paul II denied his permission.

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The woman who saved the Holy Grail by stuffing it down a sofa - defying MI6 agents who wanted to steal it away to Britain

www.dailymail.co.uk, February 23, 2024
The Holy Grail, or cup from which Jesus Christ drank during the Last Supper, is the most venerated relic in the Christian faith. It has been the object of great curiosity and intrigue over the centuries. It was moved from country to country, city to church, church to church, but the cathedral of Valencia, Spain, in 1437, was closed. A slew of Popes have skepticism, but at least four, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, have maintained that it is the real deal; not only Jesus' cup, but also the vessel used to gather his blood at the Crucifixion. Several crooks, including Nazi war looters, have attempted to steal it from art dealers and museums, who have sought to pull it out of their deepest vaults.

More than 9,000 child victims are feared to have been abused in German Protestant church sex scandal going back decades - but number may be 'tip of the iceberg'

www.dailymail.co.uk, January 25, 2024
According to a recent report, up to 9,355 children have been exposed to sex abuse in Germany's protestant churches since the Second World War. According to an extensive 871-page study by independent researchers, the incidence of violence since 1946 was much higher than previously expected, with many of the estimated 3,497 criminals recruited to priestly positions in the clergy. In the report that was sponsored by the church itself in 2020, which cost the church's budget by 3.6 million euros (£3.1 million) to investigate various internal systems that enable such abuses of power, there were 2,225 instances of wrongdoing in the text.

On the first anniversary of the ex-pontiff's death, the Pope blesses us and accompanys us from heaven.'

www.dailymail.co.uk, December 31, 2023
Pope Benedict XVI (inset) said today in his address: 'One year ago, Pope Benedict XVI (inset) stopped his earthly journey after serving the Church with love and wisdom,' Pope Benedict XVI (inset) said today. We have so much love, gratitude, and admiration for him. May God bless us and accompany us from heaven.' Francis pleaded for a round of applause from the pilgrims and tourists gathered in St. Peter's Square (right). On New Year's Eve 2022, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the shy German theologian who was the first pontiff to resign from service, died at the age of 95. Benedict stunned the world on February 11, 2013 when he revealed in soft-spoken Latin that he no longer had the energy to lead the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church he had been steering for eight years through scandal and indifference. His historic vote paved the way for Pope Francis' ascension as his successor, which culminated in the creation of two popes living side by side in the Vatican gardens for ten years.