The priest Joseph Ratzinger, born on April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, in southern Germany, was named Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977, and a few months later also Cardinal, which gave him the opportunity to participate in the 1978 conclave – a meeting of Cardinals to elect a new Pope.
As Cardinal, he received Pope John Paul II in Germany, who placed him at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
However, Ratzinger was recognized as a pure theologian. Much of his life was devoted to training as a professor of theology at various universities, including the Faculty of the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology in Freising, the University of Bonn, and the University of Regensburg.
Among other things, he served as:
President of the International Theological Commission
President of the Biblical Commission
Successor to John Paul II
At the age of 78, Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope on April 19, 2005 after the death on April 2 of John Paul II. He became the oldest pontiff to take office after more than 230 years.
He was elected in the fourth ballot of the conclave, and took the name of Benedict XVI, due to his closeness to Benedict XV, Pope during the First World War.
His election was interpreted as a continuation of conservatism in the Church.
interreligious meeting
In an effort to increase dialogue between religions, in late 2006 Benedict XVI visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, where he accompanied Muslim clerics in silent prayer, despite criticism among the most radical Islamists.
With this, he became the second Pope to enter a mosque and pray in it, after John Paul II in 2001 in Damascus.
Hundreds of Islamist people protested against the visit of the Pontiff, whom they demanded not to enter Hagia Sophia, which they asked to become a mosque again.
In 2009, during a visit to Nazareth, Benedict XVI held a meeting with representatives of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Druze and other religions.
In the auditorium of the sanctuary of the Annunciation, he prayed for peace holding hands with a rabbi and an imam from Galilee, while another rabbi intoned the Salam, Shalon.
Days earlier, he visited a mosque in Jordan, where he urged Christians and Muslims to together defend religion from political manipulation.
traditional values
Contrary to the winds of change represented by his successor, Pope Francis, Benedict XVI defended traditional and conservative values in the Catholic Church during his papacy.
I reject the call for a debate on the celibacy of priests
Reaffirmed Communion bans for remarried Catholics
He maintained a conservative view regarding abortion, euthanasia, and homosexual relationships.
A German Pope prays in Auschwitz
On a visit to Poland in May 2006, Pope Benedict XVI, who lived through Nazism firsthand, paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust when he toured the Auschwitz death camp.
World War II forced Ratzinger to enlist as a soldier in the ranks of the German Army at the age of 16. He deserted near the end of the war and was taken prisoner. After the conflict, he returned to the seminary.
On his visit to Auschwitz, he expressed his sadness, regret and friendship towards the Jewish people.
The following year, he spoke of how the “monster” of Nazism ruined his adolescence in a meeting with nearly 20,000 young people in New York.
That same 2007, in September, he also visited a memorial in Austria, Vienna.
Far from Latin America
Benedict XVI made his second visit to Latin America in March 2012, with a tour that took him to Mexico and Cuba, amid criticism for the apparent neglect in which he kept the continent during his tenure.
The Pontiff visited the most Catholic region in the world for the first time in 2007, on the occasion of the V CELAM Conference held in Brazil.
In his 27-year pontificate, his predecessor, John Paul II, visited Latin America a total of 26 times, of which he went to Mexico five times, which is why he was called “the Mexican Pope.”
The first to resign in 6 centuries
On Monday, February 11, 2013, at the age of 85 and after 8 years in office, Benedict XVI surprised the world by announcing that he would resign after two weeks, the first Pope to resign in 598 years.
He recognized that his physical condition was “no longer adequate” to exercise the ministry “in the proper way”, and said that from then on he would remain “in the service of prayer”.
The announcement was made personally in Latin, during the consistory for the canonization of the martyrs of Otranto.
He spent the rest of his life in retirement in the conditioned Mater Ecclesiae monastery, in the Vatican, in a simple white cassock, along with his books and records.
He occasionally received visits from his clergy friends, including his successor, Pope Francis.
