Joseph Ratzinger is dead – Who was Pope Benedict XVI
He died at 95 Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope emeritus who had been in serious condition for some time, yet refused to go to the hospital, preferring to stay at home with the assistance of his personal doctor, Patrick Polisca. Thus ended the sufferings of the theologian, the seventh German Pope in history, who in 2005, on the death of Karol Wojtyla, he chose the name of Benedict XVI for himself.
Born on 16 April 1927 – on Holy Saturday – in Marktl in Bavaria, the future Pope entered the seminary at the age of 12, in 1939. But in 1942, for military reasons, the school became a recruiting center and Ratzinger was enrolled ex officio at the Hitler Youth. At the age of 16 he joined the Luftwaffenhelfer, i.e. the Luftwaffe support division responsible for defending the country’s most important infrastructures and industries, such as the bmw.
In 1945 he was also imprisoned for a few weeks, when the war was almost over, before reuniting with his family and brother Georg, who had been made prisoner in Italy. In 1950 he was ordained a deacon, in 1953 he defended his doctoral thesis in theology on St. Augustine. From 1957 he was professor of dogmatl theology at the Higher Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Freising. He became a professor at the University of Bonn in 1959 and his inaugural lecture was on The God of Faith and the God of Philosophy. In 1963 he moved to the University of Münster.
The first important experience that allowed him to make a “career” in the Roman Curia was his participation in the Second Vatican Council, of which he became an expert after the intercession of the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Josef Frings. On 24 March 1977 he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising by Pope Paul VI and on May 28 of the same year he received episcopal consecration at the hands of Josef Stangl, bishop of Würzburg. As episcopal motto he chose the expression Cooperatores veritatis, collaborators of the truth. He was then named cardinal in June 1977 and, in 1978, he took part in the two conclaves which first elected Pope Albino Luciani (John Paul I), then Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II).
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
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