Fairfield County Catholic,
March 29, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI
was born Joseph Alois Ratzinger on April 16, 1927 in Marktl am
Inn, Germany. He will celebrate his 81st birthday with President and
Mrs. George Bush at the White House, on the second day of his historic
visit to the United States.
As a child, Pope
Benedict was exposed to the horrors of Nazism, watching soldiers
beat his parish priest before the celebration of Mass. At 16 he was
drafted into the anti-aircraft corps of the German Army. During this
complex time, he discovered the beauty and truth of faith in Christ.
Fundamental for this was his family's attitude. They always gave a clear
witness of goodness and hope, rooted in a convinced attachment to the
Church.
Pope Benedict was
ordained to the priesthood in 1951, the same day as his brother,
Georg. He was a professor of theology at several universities
in Germany for 26 years.
From 1962-1965,
Pope Benedict made a notable contribution to the Second Vatican Council
as a peritus, or theological advisor.
Pope Benedict's
address to the Catholic Academy of Bavaria in 1971 on "Why I am still
in the Church" made a lasting impression. In it, he stated with
his usual clarity, "One can only be a Christian in the Church, not beside
the Church."
Pope Benedict was
named Archbishop of Munich in 1977 and chose as his Episcopal
motto "Cooperators of the truth." "In today's world the theme of truth
is omitted almost entirely, as something too great for man, and yet
everything collapses if truth is missing," he explained. He was named
cardinal the same year.
Pope John Paul II
called his successor to Rome in 1981, to serve as prefect of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and president of the
Pontifical Biblical and the International Theological Commissions. He
also oversaw the preparation of a new Catechism
of the Catholic Church.
Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger was elected pope at age 78 on April 19, 2005. The 264th
successor to Saint Peter, Pope Benedict is the oldest person elected
pope since Clement XII in 1730. He took the name "Benedict" after Saint
Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictines, and Pope Benedict XV,
who labored for peace in Europe after World War I.
"If we let Christ
into our lives, we lose absolutely nothing of what makes life free,
beautiful, and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life
opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human
existence truly revealed," Pope Benedict said in his inaugural
homily.
Along with his native
German, Pope Benedict speaks fluent Italian, French, English,
Spanish, and Latin. He can read ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew.
A music lover, Pope
Benedict plays the piano and has a preference for Mozart and
Beethoven. He is the first pope to own an iPod.
Pope Benedict's
two encyclicals, Deus
Caritas Est
("God is Love") and Spe
Salvi ("On Christian Hope"), have each sold more than one million
copies within weeks of their release.
Pope Benedict's
2007 book, Jesus of Nazareth, has sold millions of copies and
has been translated into 32 languages.
"We are moving toward
a dictatorship of relativism," Pope Benedict has warned. "Having
a clear faith, based on the creed of the Church, is often labeled as
a fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed
and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude
acceptable to today's standards."
In 2007, 2.8
million people participated in Masses, audiences, and other events
with Pope Benedict in Rome - the highest for any pope. The year saw
increased attention to the environment, with a Vatican conference
on global warming. Sunday, Pope Benedict said, should be seen as "the
Church's weekly feast of creation."
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