Early life of Pope Benedict XVI
The early life of Pope Benedict XVI concerns the period from his birth in 1927 through the completion of his education and ordination in 1951.
Background and childhood (1927–1943)
Joseph Alois Ratzinger was born on 16 April (
The pope's brother,
His elder brother, Georg (15 January 1924 – 1 July 2020) also became a priest. Their sister Maria, born in 1921, managed Joseph's household until her death in 1991, fulfilling a promise she made to their parents to take care of her brothers. She never married.[1] Their great uncle, Georg Ratzinger, was a priest and member of the Reichstag, as the German Parliament was then called.
According to his cousin, Erika Kopper, Ratzinger had no desire from childhood to be anything other than a priest. At the age of 15, she says, he announced that he was going to be a bishop, whereupon she playfully remarked: "And why not Pope?".[5] An even earlier incident occurred in 1932, when Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, visited the small town in which the Ratzinger family lived, arriving in a black limousine. The future pope, then five years old, was part of a group of children who presented the cardinal with flowers, and later that day Ratzinger announced he wanted to be a cardinal, too. "It wasn't so much the car, since we weren't technically minded", Georg Ratzinger told a reporter from The New York Times. "It was the way the cardinal looked, his bearing, and the knickerbockers he was wearing that made such an impression on him."[6]
In 1939, aged 12, he enrolled in a minor seminary in Traunstein.[2] This period lasted until the seminary was closed for military use in 1942, and the students were all sent home. Ratzinger returned to the Gymnasium in Traunstein.[3] During this period in the seminary, following his 14th birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth, as membership was legally required as of 25 March 1939. Following the seminary closure he continued required attendance with the Hitler Youth to avoid financial penalties in the Gymnasium tuition fees. The financial penalty (which theoretically required documentation of attendance at Hitler Youth activities) was overlooked when a sympathetic mathematics professor[4] allowed him not to attend any meetings. In Ratzinger's book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger says the following "... Thank goodness, there was a very understanding mathematics teacher. He himself was a Nazi but an honest man, who said to me, 'Just go once and get the document so that we have it' ... When he saw that I simply didn't want to, he said, 'I understand, I'll take care of it', and so I was able to stay free of it."[5]
After Joseph Ratzinger was elected pontiff in 2005, following the death of Pope
Military service (1943–1945)
Joseph Alois Ratzinger | |
---|---|
Allegiance |
|
Service/ | Reichsarbeitsdienst Luftwaffenhelfer |
Years of service | 1943–1945 |
Battles/wars | World War II |
In 1943, when he was 16, Joseph Ratzinger was drafted with many of his classmates into the
On 20 November 1944, his unit was released from service. Joseph Ratzinger again returned home. After three weeks passed, he was drafted into the
Soon after, two
When the Americans arrived in the village, "I was identified as a soldier, had to put back on the uniform I had already abandoned, had to raise my hands and join the steadily growing throng of war prisoners whom they were lining up on our meadow. It especially cut my good mother's heart to see her boy and the rest of the defeated army standing there, exposed to an uncertain fate..."[8] Ratzinger was briefly interned in a POW camp near Ulm and was released on 19 June 1945. He and another young man began to walk the 120 km (75 mi) home but got a lift to Traunstein in a milk truck.[9] The family was reunited when his brother, Georg, returned after being released from a POW camp in Italy.
Priestly formation (1946–1951)
Following repatriation in 1945, both Ratzinger brothers entered a Catholic seminary in
References
- ^ Wolfgang Beinert, "Pope's friends say fame has not changed Joseph Ratzinger" Archived 20 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Regensburg, Germany, 12 September 2006.
- ^ Cardinal Ratzinger: the Vatican's enforcer of the faith. John L. Allen, 2000. p. 14
- ^ Cardinal Ratzinger: the Vatican's enforcer of the faith. John L. Allen, 2000. p. 15
- ^ USA Today (23 April 2005). "New Pope Defied Nazis As Teen During WWII". USA Today. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
- ^ Zenit News Agency (12 May 2009). "German Pope's Past Misrepresented". Retrieved 16 September 2010.
- ^ "Achtung! It's not the Pope who's the rat". The Age. 23 April 2005.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89870-702-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-89870-702-1.
- ISBN 978-0-89870-702-1.
- )
Notes
- ^ Times Online (UK) 17 April 2005 ("Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth")
- ^ International Herald Tribune 22 April 2005. "A boy's dreams lead from a village to the Vatican" (reprinted from The New York Times)
- ^ The New York Times, 21 April 2005. "A Future Pope Is Recalled: A Lover of Cats and Mozart, Dazzled by Church as a Boy"
- ^ National Catholic Reporter, 14 October 2005. "Anti-Nazi Prelate Beatified. The conference took place under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for Health Care. At the present date (January 2006) there is no reference to this Conference at the Vatican's website.
- ^ Cousin recalls boy who dreamed of church life "Cousin recalls boy who dreamed of church life" (21 April 2005)
- ^ "Hitler Youth—Prelude to War. 1933–1938", historyplace.com. Accessed 23 February 2024.