Pope Benedict the 16th

Joseph Ratzinger was born in the Marktl am Inn which is in Bavaria, Germany, on April 16th of 1927 which is Holy Saturday. He was baptized on the same day and was the first person to be baptized in the Easter water which was blessed on the Easter Vigil. He was the third and youngest child of Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., who was a police officer and Maria Ratzinger. Joseph Ratzinger has one brother and one sister. His brother is George Ratzinger and his sister is Maria Ratzinger. George Ratzinger is a priest and is still alive and his Maria Ratzinger managed their household until she died in 1991.

            When Joseph Ratzinger was five years old, he was in a group of children who welcomed the Cardinal Archbishop of Munich by giving him flowers. Joseph found interest in the Cardinal and said that day that he wanted to be a cardinal when he gets older. When Joseph turned 14 in 1941, he was automatically enlisted into the Hitler Youth since all 14 year old boys were required after 1939. He was an unenthusiastic member and refused to attend the meetings. Later in the year of 1941, Joseph’s cousin with Down syndrome was killed by the Nazis at the age of 14 as a part of there eugenics. The Nazi eugenics is the Nazi’s beliefs that they can create a better human species by not having the persons with genetic defects reproduce. They also encourage the people with the good traits to reproduce more to create a better race.

            In 1943, Joseph Ratzinger was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps at the age of 16. The anti-aircraft corps is where child soldiers were put into World War II. Ratzinger trained for the German military, but he got an illness which allowed him from not being in the infantry at the time. When the enemy got closer in 1945, Joseph Ratzinger deserted the military and went back to his family’s home. Joseph and his brother George joined back up into the seminary later in 1945. The two brothers entered Saint Michael Seminary in Traunstein. They were both ordained by Cardinal Michael Van Faulhaber on June 29, 1951 in Munich. By 1958, Joseph Ratzinger became a professor of Freising College.

            Joseph Ratzinger later the next year moved to become a professor at the University of Bonn in 1959 in which his inaugural lecture to his class was called “the God of Faith and the God of Philosophy.” In 1963, Joseph moved again to become another professor for the University of Munster. In 1966, Joseph once again moved to a different school and this time he went to the University of Tubingen to be the second chair in dogmatic theology. There was a different type of religion going through Tubingen in 1969, so Joseph Ratzinger moved back to Bavaria and took a teaching position at the University of Regensburg. Eventually, Joseph became dean and then later than that he became the president of the University.