Rome of the West: Some notes on Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Pope Benedict XVI says that he chose his name after Benedict XV, especially since he struggled for peace during the First World War.

Joseph Ratzinger and Karol Wojtyla were both from the liberal wing during the Second Vatican Council. Ratzinger preferred Augustine to Aquinas, and did not like neo-scholasticism. He did have a great interest in existentialism, and read Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, and Spinoza. He also studied Jewish and Protestant biblical exegesis. His later writing shows influence from these sources. Ratzinger can fairly be called a Liberal, as that word would have been defined in the early 1960s: however, he is most certainly not a contemporary post-modern liberal, who takes skepticism, relativism, and sophism to extremes. Ratzinger does strongly support the idea of Truth, like old Liberals but unlike contemporary Liberals. Now the new Pope is considered an 'arch-conservative'.

Young Ratzinger loved the Greek and Latin classics, and read Goethe with delight.

He was the youngest of three children. His parents names were Mary and Joseph.

As a boy, Ratzinger was compelled to join the Hitler Youth, but did not participate. He was deferred from draft into the S.S. by seminary studies, and later went AWOL from the German Army. He was an American prisoner of war for about a month. His father was a staunch anti-Nazi and devout Catholic policeman.

Pope Benedict speaks numerous languages: French fluently, and also English, Spanish, Italian, and of course, German and Latin. He loves literature, and is an accomplished pianist, and enjoyed Mozart and Beethoven. He is said to be a very gentle, humble person and a tenacious intellectual. He is said to be also somewhat distant and cold, with less charisma than John Paul II, but he has a good sense of humor and gives heartfelt homilies.

Benedict XVI is the eighth German Pope, the third from the modern territory of Germany.

Ratzinger was made a Cardinal in 1977 by Pope Paul VI, one of the few Cardinal-electors who were not selected by Pope John Paul II.

The Pope's brother is a priest and choirmaster in Ravensburg.