Pope Benedict XVI died in Rome on Saturday, December 31. He had lived 95 years. He was the first pope to step down since the 1500s.
Joseph Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927, in the German state of Bavaria. After World War I, he grew up in Germany as the Nazi regime got stronger. He went to school to learn about religion and become a theologian. After Pope John Paul II died in 2005, Ratzinger was chosen to be the next pope. For 25 years, it was his job to make sure the Vatican followed the rules. He was the first pope from Germany since the 1100s.
Outside the Catholic Church, he is best known for his sudden resignation, which was the first papal abdication since 1415, and for being the first “pope emeritus” in hundreds of years.
His Roman Catholic family was harassed and punished because they didn’t agree with the policies of the Nazi Party. He decided to give his life to the church because of this.
Pope Benedict XVI was not rich, even though he was the head of the Catholic Church. Instead, he was a leader of the faith. He led a simple life focused on helping the Church and the people in it. The pope’s salary and other costs were paid by the Vatican, which is a sovereign city-state in Rome and the center of the Catholic Church. The work of the pope and the Church is paid for by the Vatican’s own budget and money. Find out how much the Pope was worth when he died after he had retired.
Archbishop Michael Von Faulhaber of Munich interested Ratzinger in the priesthood
When Ratzinger was young, Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber of Munich asked him to bring flowers to him. Because of this, he wanted to become a priest right away. Ratzinger wanted to be a cardinal when he was five years old because of the priest’s royal appearance and red robes.
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In an old interview with the New York Times, Benedict said that the cardinal’s “look, bearing, and the knickerbockers he was wearing” made a lasting impression on him.
Pope Benedict was once forced to serve in the German army
Joseph Ratzinger was born Pope Benedict XVI, and he was in charge of the Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013. He studied religion. He was forced to join the Hitler Youth when he was young and living in Germany. Later, he was forced to join the army during World War II, but he ran away in April 1945 when he saw how bad the war was. He was taken prisoner of war by the Americans and held there for a while before he and his brother Georg went back to Germany and went back to school.
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They were both ordained on the same day in 1951, and Ratzinger went on to have a successful career in the Church, becoming Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 and a cardinal the same year under Pope Paul VI. People knew about him because of what he knew, what he wrote, and what he did to stop sexual abuse in the Church. Pope Benedict XVI gave up his job in 2013 because he was getting older and his health was getting worse. He was the first pope since the 1500s to do that.