Ave Papa - we have a new Pope

[MrBishop]

Pope Joseph Ratzinger (born April 16, 1927) is pope of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1981 Cardinal Ratzinger was appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope John Paul II, made a Cardinal Bishop of the episcopal see of Velletri-Segni in 1993, and was elected Dean of the College of Cardinals in 2002, becoming titular bishop of Ostia. One of the most influential men in the Vatican and a close associate of the late Pope John Paul II, he has been mentioned by many commentators as a possible successor. He presided over the funeral of John Paul II and will also preside over the Conclave in 2005. During the sede vacante, he is the highest-ranking official in the Catholic Church.

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Early life and works
Ratzinger was born in Marktl am Inn, in Bavaria, the son of a police officer who was staunchly anti-Nazi. In 1937 Ratzinger's father retired and settled in the town of Traunstein. When Ratzinger turned 14 in 1941, he was required by law to join the Hitler Youth , but according to his biographer John Allen he was not an enthusiastic member. In 1943, at the age of 16 he was, along with the rest of his class, drafted into the Flak or anti-aircraft corps, responsible for the guarding of a BMW plant outside Munich. He was then sent for basic infantry training and was posted to Hungary, where he worked setting up anti-tank defences until he deserted in April 1944 (an offence punishable by death). In 1945 he was briefly held in an Allied POW camp. By June he was released, and he and his brother (Georg) entered a Catholic seminary. On June 29, 1951, they were ordained by Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich. His dissertation (1953) was on Saint Augustine, his Habilitationsschrift (second dissertation) on Saint Bonaventure.

Ratzinger was a professor at the University of Bonn from 1959 until 1963, when he moved to the University of Münster. In 1966, he took a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he was a colleague of Hans Küng but was confirmed in his traditionalist views by the liberal atmosphere of Tübingen and the Marxist leanings of the student movement of the 1960s. In 1969 he returned to Bavaria, to the University of Regensburg.

At the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965), Ratzinger served as a peritus or chief theological expert, to Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne, Germany.

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Communio and later works
In 1972, he founded the theological journal Communio with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and others. Communio, now published in seventeen editions (German, English, Spanish and many others), has become one of the most important journals of Catholic thought.

In March 1977 Ratzinger was named archbishop of Munich and Freising and in the consistory that June was named a Cardinal by Pope Paul VI. Today he is one of only 14 remaining cardinals appointed by Paul VI, and one of only three of those under the age of 80 and so eligible to vote in the conclave of April 2005.

On November 25, 1981 Pope John Paul II named Ratzinger prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which was renamed in 1908 by Pope Pius X. He resigned the Munich archdiocese in early 1982, became cardinal-bishop of Velletri-Segni in 1993, vice-dean of the College of Cardinals in 1998, and was elected Dean in 2002. In office, Ratzinger usually takes conservative views on topics such as birth control and inter-religious dialogue. He has been closer to John Paul II than any other cardinal, and Ratzinger and the Pope have been called "intellectual bedfellows".

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