TWO POPES TO GO!
Pope from April 19, 2005 - February 28, 2013
Born: April 16, 1927 (age 94)
Birth name: Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger
Who was this guy before he was pope?
Joseph Ratzinger was born in Lower Bavaria on Holy Saturday, April 16, 1927, the youngest of three children. Young Joseph’s family was a bitter opponent to Nazism, which resulted in his father (a police officer) being demoted and frequently harassed. Joseph was forced to join the Hitler Youth in 1941, but rarely attended meetings, abandoned his post in 1945, and even witnessed the Americans establish their town headquarters in the Ratzinger household.
Joseph and his brother, Georg, were ordained priests together on June 29, 1951. He was a natural academic, pursuing studies until 1958 and teaching at numerous institutions over the next two decades. From 1962-1965, Father Ratzinger served as a special adviser to Cologne’s Cardinal Frings at the Second Vatican Council. He was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising on March 27, 1977 and was made a cardinal just three months later, both by Pope Paul VI. John Paul II put him in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981, in which he taught and upheld Church teaching on a host of topics over 24 years as its prefect.
Joseph and his brother, Georg, were ordained priests together on June 29, 1951. He was a natural academic, pursuing studies until 1958 and teaching at numerous institutions over the next two decades. From 1962-1965, Father Ratzinger served as a special adviser to Cologne’s Cardinal Frings at the Second Vatican Council. He was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising on March 27, 1977 and was made a cardinal just three months later, both by Pope Paul VI. John Paul II put him in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981, in which he taught and upheld Church teaching on a host of topics over 24 years as its prefect.
Okay, give me the scoop on Benedict XVI.
The death of St. John Paul II left some rather large shoes to fill, but many saw Benedict XVI as an obvious and very capable next-man-up. Despite being the fifth-oldest man to be elected pope (age 78), Benedict was hardly a holdover, and still had plenty of gas left in the tank. His choice of name hearkened both to Benedict XV (1914-1922), “that courageous prophet of peace, who guided the Church through turbulent times of war,” and to St. Benedict of Nursia, founder of Western monasticism and “whose life evokes the Christian roots of Europe.”
Benedict XVI was the ninth German pope in Church history, the first German in nearly 500 years (Adrian VI), and he and John Paul II marked the first consecutive non-Italian pontiffs since the Avignon Papacy of the 1300s. His preaching encouraged the faithful to pursue intimate friendship with Jesus, a fact particularly on display in Deus caritas est, his first encyclical: “If friendship with God becomes for us something ever more important and decisive, then we will begin to love those whom God loves and who are in need of us.”
Benedict XVI was the ninth German pope in Church history, the first German in nearly 500 years (Adrian VI), and he and John Paul II marked the first consecutive non-Italian pontiffs since the Avignon Papacy of the 1300s. His preaching encouraged the faithful to pursue intimate friendship with Jesus, a fact particularly on display in Deus caritas est, his first encyclical: “If friendship with God becomes for us something ever more important and decisive, then we will begin to love those whom God loves and who are in need of us.”
In a surprising move, Benedict XVI resigned the papacy on February 28, 2013, becoming the first pontiff in more than 700 years to do so freely (St. Celestine V). Now styled “Pope Emeritus,” he currently resides at Vatican City’s Mater Ecclesiae monastery.
What was he known for?
Without doubt, Benedict XVI is known for being a humble and gentle, yet firm, Vicar of Christ. His very acceptance of the papacy, when he admittedly would rather have retired to a small Bavarian village to write books, was alone a remarkable move in service to the Lord and his Church.
In one notable case, despite Benedict’s unassuming demeanor, Catholic commentator John Allen, Jr. called him a “Catholic Elliot Ness” when it came to handling the clergy sex abuse crisis. He was equally staunch in denouncing the “dictatorship of relativism” that had gripped the world, saying, “under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego.”
Fun Fact...
Though the more formal trappings of the papacy have been more absent in recent decades, Benedict XVI wasn’t one to shy away from them. It was for different reasons than one might think, however, that he opted for traditional garb like red shoes, the camauro (red winter cap), a red saturno (wide-brimmed hat), or more ornate liturgical vestments. As Charlotte Allen wrote about Benedict following his resignation:
“He has reminded a world that looks increasingly ugly and debased that there is such a thing as the beautiful—whether it's embodied in a sonata or an altarpiece or an embroidered cope or the cut of a cassock—and that earthly beauty ultimately communicates a beauty that is beyond earthly things.”
Coming tomorrow....Pope Francis