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ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FUTURE POPE: Stories about Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope

Ultimo Aggiornamento: 23/11/2008 15:43
14/01/2007 23:18
 
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REMEMBERING RATZI THE SEMINARIAN
Palma and Andrea, thanks for the article....But Palma, now you know that you can't and shouldn't use those on-line translators! Since they are mechanical, they simply translate words in the order they find it in the original and without any context, obviously, so you end up having something that is almost as incomprehensible as the original! Please, all you have to do is e-mail me or Andrea any German article you wish translated - we would always credit you for it. And I am always available for Italian, French, Spanish or Portuguese, as well.
================================================================

I lifted the following article from NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT where Benefan posted it. It's a great piece of enterprise reporting by an American writer (I suppose) who really made good use of a visit to Bavaria in more ways than one. A great part of it consists of reminiscences about Joseph Ratzinger's early years from those who knew him then, including the Fr. Rupert Berger, who attended seminary with Joseph and Georg, and was almost always photographed with them in the photos we have from the day of their ordination.


Can a pope's childhood roots
shape a Church?

BY KATHLEEN STAUFFER
Catholic Digest


BAVARIA, GERMANY - Unsullied by time, the picture-postcard landscape unfolds in visual cliché: Immense round hay bales balance in bucolic fields. Red geraniums pour from flower boxes hanging from windows of whitewashed chalets. Brown cows graze calmly on grass so green it glints yellow in sunlight. Trees brood blackly in the shade. A craggy horizon of pale purple Alpine peaks reaches as far as the eye can see.

It’s almost as if change knocked at Bavaria’s door and, unlike the rest of the West, Bavaria said no thanks. Though the region is known for its folksy hospitality, friendly Bavarians won’t say “hello”; or “guten Tag,” they’ll say “Grüß Gott” (“Greetings, in God’s name”). Enter a shop to buy an Alpine hat in Oberammergau, and before asking if you need help, the shopkeeper will smile, “Grüß Gott.”

Hand-cut stacks of wood nestle tidily beside each doorstep of every home in the rolling Bavarian hills, a testament to hearth, family, and a diligence and conformity that mirror the inner world of the current pope.

Bavarians embrace the rigors of life and its comforts too. Warm pretzels and warm beer equal warm hospitality. Hard work and hard winters are God’s reminder that life requires serious toil amid the play. Some things don’t change because they aren’t meant to change. “Grüß Gott.”

Faith is the sustenance to which Bavaria cleaves: More than half its citizens identify as Catholic, and by some measures the figure could be as high as 70 percent. In Regensburg, where Professor Josef Ratzinger taught university theology from 1969 until he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977, 83 percent of residents are Catholic.

There’s no separating Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, from his native land. His philosophical roots remain planted in fertile, faithful, hardworking Bavaria — Germany’s most economically productive region. “My heart beats Bavarian,” he once told a flock of reporters in Rome.

Father Markus Moderegger grins indulgently, head tilted toward the ceiling. The thin, bespectacled rector of the Student Seminary of St. Michael in Traunstein, where Josef Ratzinger lived his high school years, acknowledges the thundering soles of boys running overhead. The young priest shrugs. "Tomorrow is the first day of school…”

St. Michael Seminary is a dormitory built to encourage vocations. Saving souls and forming souls, along with a healthy indulgence in sport, were its mainstays even when young Josef Ratzinger lived here in the 1940s. Gold- and silver-plated soccer trophies fill a case in the hall.

Opposite the sports board hang photocopies of German press clippings. There’s no whitewashing here. The articles chronicle controversies surrounding the newly elected Roman Catholic pope. Hints of a Nazi past. Explanations of how the teenage Josef Ratzinger ended up briefly joining the Hitler youth. It’s a candid collection, aimed at encouraging discussion.

But St. Michael’s most famous graduate wouldn’t likely have come boisterously down the stairs. Still smiling, Moderegger explains that Ratzinger didn’t like sports and didn’t even like life in Traunstein, population 18,000, when he first arrived. “He grew up in a humble farmhouse, very close to his family. This was so different from his life in the country.” Ratzinger hails from a typical Bavarian family, with ties that bind.

Yet the food for thought posted on the bulletin board hints at the deeper story. It was here that Josef Ratzinger first encountered the art of theological polemics and academic disputation. And, he liked it.

Up at 5 a.m., Mass at 5:30, next a Bible study and a quick bite to eat before heading off to school — such a life might not suit every young man, but it suited the future pope once he began meeting like-minded friends at St. Michael.

From the beginning, by all accounts, the introverted pope liked a good debate that required him to use his wits. What he lacked competitively on the soccer field he made up for in the classroom.

Josef Ratzinger grew to love St. Michael, returning annually for extended stays and vacations right until the day he became pope.

Widmar Tanner was a vice president of the University of Regensburg and a full biology professor when Professor Josef Ratzinger served as co-vice president with him from 1975 to 1976. Tanner represented the college of sciences; Ratzinger, who’d been ordained in 1951 and earned his doctorate in theology from the University of Munich in 1953, headed up the college of humanities. [I didn't know this last bit, about humanities in Regensburg! Was theology under humanities, then?]

“We were told when he was presented that he was one of the great theologians of Germany.” Tanner’s personal encounters with the newly appointed vice-president reinforced the rumors.

Though Ratzinger proved formidable with an argument, Tanner fondly remembers his colleague. “He was very friendly. He was an exceptional speaker, but he was very modest. He stayed in the background. But when he made his argument, he made it brilliantly. We had great respect for him as a leader in his field.”

Tanner chuckles. “When we had arguments against each other, he usually won!”

The halls at Regensburg buzzed when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope on April 19, 2005. Tanner says those who knew Benedict XVI held a different opinion than those who did not.

“On the day he was elected, people were critical. For many years he had been prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Since then, you hear people talk about him changing or softening, but I don’t think he’s changed.”

While others talked that spring of having an inquisitor for a pope, Tanner remained silent. Knowing him, I didn’t speak of him in this way. When people take on more responsibility, they often change. They have to change. But I would say that, rather, in my short time of knowing him, he did lead me to think that he is capable of listening and conciliation.”

Father Rupert Berger, retired professor of liturgy science at the University of Freising, sits in his study in a small parish house in Traunstein. A newspaper lies open on his dining-room table, and a homey jumble of books and papers cluttering the room pegs him for an academic. A pair of glasses resting on the outspread newspaper suggests he has been following Pope Benedict’s travels here in Bavaria. For Berger, the news stories evoke mixed emotions.

Josef Ratzinger, Rupert Berger, and Ratzinger’s older brother Georg attended seminary and were ordained together in 1951.

The pope is one of Berger’s closest friends. Often, they concelebrated Mass at St. Oswald, the village church here, and then went afterward to the pub next door. Berger would have a glass of wine, but Josef Ratzinger usually drank water. “He doesn’t like it,” shrugs Berger when asked why the future pope rarely indulged in something stronger.

In those postwar days, there were no typical teenage high jinks.The seminary in Munich had been bombed to ruins. Seminary candidates were charged with clearing the site for rebuilding. Rupert, Josef, and Georg staggered under the weight of wheelbarrows laden with chunks of concrete and shards of steel. In payment, they received rations from the Marshall Plan: rice, cornbread, grains, and cereals. It was strange fare to youth accustomed to bratwurst and potatoes. But they were grateful to have food at all.

“We didn’t get into trouble not because we were good boys,” said Berger, “but because we were so relieved to have survived the war and to have found ourselves back in school.”

Josef was even slighter than his friend and his brother, but he hoisted and pushed load after load of rubble without complaint. All the while, the boys attended lectures in anticipation of taking high school graduation exams. They were all good students. “But he was always the best.”

Regulations also required the boys to submit to “re-education” during the Allied occupation of post-World War II Germany. Berger says they didn’t mind the repatriation.

“The lectures were really interesting. We had lived through these things (the atrocities the Allied indoctrination underscored). We had seen it all for ourselves!”

Was Josef Ratzinger ever a sympathetic member of the Hitler youth, as some reports imply? [I still cannot believe people with any iota of commonsense would ever even think he entertained any Nazi sympathies - actually, I don't believe those who write so believe it themselves: They are just being spiteful of someone they do not like, and can't abide the thought that he is now Pope!] Berger sits forward in his chair and waves his arms. “Nein, nein, nein — no, no, no.”

“We were not Nazis! Quite the opposite!” Berger’s father, also named Rupert, had been a leader in the Nazi resistance from the early days of Hitler’s regime and spent six months in Dachau for his work in the Bavarian People’s Party. Afterward, the family was banished from Traunstein.

Even as a young seminarian, Josef Ratzinger made an impression. “We all admired [Josef] because he worked so hard,” continues Berger. “We would go for walks, but he never joined us for entertainments. He sat at his desk and read all the time.”

In a region noted for its industry, Ratzinger proved even more industrious than your average Bavarian. Berger would have to drag his friend from the books to gain a social companion for an afternoon. A lot of the seminarians liked ballet, but Ratzinger didn’t care for it and neither did Berger. Once or twice a month, though, Ratzinger could be persuaded to visit the theater for a play or an opera.

Ratzinger’s bookishness goes hand in hand with his introversion. Berger says Ratzinger always was friendly but left others to make the introductions.

“His privacy is extremely important to him.” Yet the pope is hardly humorless. Berger, with great amusement, points out that we have a joyful pope, not a comedian. “He loves to laugh, but he is not the one who tells the jokes!”

The two pals have not met since Cardinal Josef Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI. {I can't believe they didn't see each other in Baaria last September! They could have met in Altoetting, where Georg joined teh Pope!] Prior to Benedict’s papacy, they annually spent time together during Ratzinger’s extended vacations in Traunstein.

On his visits, Ratzinger bunked at St. Michael, where his love for books and his passion for priesthood first converged. His brother Georg always joined him. In the evening, Josef would read the paper to Georg, whose eyesight is reportedly delicate. Then Georg, an accomplished pianist, would begin working the piano while Josef turned on the lamp in the room across the hall and got down to business.

Father Markus Moderegger stretches one palm above the other, about 15 inches apart. “He always brought work with him, a big stack of papers.”

The Sisters who handle St. Michael’s housekeeping miss the beneficent Ratzingers. Both brothers regularly hiked into Traunstein. “You would see their two white heads going off down the road. When they returned, they carried sacks of presents. They’d gone shopping. For the Sisters!”

In a simpler world, these intimate vacations would continue. But modern security concerns and an international press corps make such dreams impossible.

Could Rupert Berger pick up the phone just now and call his friend, the pope? Berger’s smile is slow and warm and fond and sure. “Yes, I think so. I am very careful with the word friend. There are really only very few people you can call your friends in life. The pope is one of mine.”

Does the pope like beer? Not really. Press reports that Pope Benedict XVI likes his beer are inaccurate, says the pope’s longtime friend Father Rupert Berger. “He doesn’t like the taste of alcohol,” Berger says with a shrug. “He just never did.” At home, the pope drinks orange juice.

But never let it be said that Benedict XVI is a party pooper. “On special occasions, when everybody else is having a drink, he will join in so he doesn’t spoil the fun.” Then, the pope will sip a radler, or what Germans call a bicycler. The drink, a combination of beer and lemonade, derives its name from the source of its invention: In the 1920s, Alpine bicyclists wanting to avoid wobbling along the twists and turns of a long ride diluted their beer at lunchtime to avoid riding under the influence.

---------------------------
Radler recipe
½ glass of lemonade
½ glass of German beer
Mix gently and serve. (For a more accurate rendition, serve at room temperature — as is the German custom.)
---------------------------

With Benedict, you get equal helpings of Bavarian geniality and Bavarian self-discipline. You get singular intelligence and deep affection in the same man.

“What people who know him admire is that he is so bright and so pious. This combination you just don’t find very often,” Berger says. “And I admire his sermons because they come from the heart in spite of his living so much in the head.”

Father Berger and Professor Tanner assess the new pope similarly. Berger sees both orthodoxy and flexibility going hand-in-hand. “Whatever job he is given, he adapts to the task. As a cardinal, he adapted. As a pope, he is a completely different man than the Defender of his Faith. He is always open. He is always learning and adapting. “To touch the children, to wave — he learned this from his predecessor.”

But Berger jumps a little in his chair when asked if this change will be reflected theologically. When the pope’s friend speaks of change, he is talking not about the essence of theology but about the essence of human behavior.

Such precision with phraseology is a rhetorician’s domain, and it is here where Benedict and his friend Berger feel most at home. The pope has been known to speak with a lover’s yearning about missing his academic debates, mourning his loss of time for theological endeavor.

In the speech in Regensburg, where the pope compared Christian relativism to Muslim fundamentalism, using a stark (and to orthodox Muslims, offensive) illustration, he perhaps intended to spark a dialogue between the two faiths.

Clearly, he was warning both Christians and Muslims to guard against deferring to the self ’s rationalizations in living their faiths: It’s not what makes sense to us but what makes sense to God that matters.

For Benedict, being a little bit Catholic is like being a little bit Bavarian: There’s no such thing.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/01/2007 8.15]

15/01/2007 00:09
 
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I second that !!!!
Dear Palma,

Teresa is right about those online translators. All they can do is give you a hint as to what the text is about. But for a serious translation they are useless !!!!

Yes, you can either ffz-mail me or Teresa anything you would like to see translated. And Palma: do indicate your sources !!!!!!

I can also do Spanish,Portuguese and French or Italian into English.

However, I cannot translate anything INTO Italian. Occasional translations from Italian into German, for instance, are fine with me.

Andrea
17/01/2007 17:49
 
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An interview with Georg Ratzinger
Hello everyone,

Palma would like to share with us an interview with Georg Ratzinger which she has asked me to translate. She always saw only part of the interview posted. The interview covers a variety of issues including childhood memories. This is the reason why I decided to post it here. The original interview was published on a Spanish-language web-site. Here is a translation:

Interview with Father Georg Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI’ brother

«JOSEPH HAS A GOOD SENSE OF HUMOUR AND IS VERY HAPPY»

When he received the news of his brother’s election, he could not believe it. At 81 years of age, this priest who is a canon of the Cathedoral of Regensburg and who has an affable and cheerful character, a great musician – director of the Regensburger Domspatzen (Regensburg Boys Choir) - a children’s choir of the first category in Germany – explains to Alfa y Omega some of the memories of his life

What can you tell us about your family?

My father was a policeman and my mother was a countrywoman. My father had to change his workplace a number of times. At the time when my brother was born, we were at Marktl am Inn. And two years later we moved to a small town near the the Austrian border called Tittmonning. After that my father was assigned to Aschau am Inn. There at Aschau, Joseph went to Primary School and received his First Communion. And in 1937, when my father retired from his service, we moved to Trauenstein, well, to a house on the outskirts of Traunstein. There, my brother went to Secondary School. At that time, he worked as a "mozo de carga" a gofer (?), and after that he had to enroll as a soldier. During the war he was a Prisoner of War. Then we studied in Freising and in 1951, he was ordained priest. He was a professor in Freising, Bonn. Münster, Tübingen and Regensburg. From Regensburg he passed on to the chair of Archbishop of Munich, where cardinal Wetter continues as his successor. He was in Munich from 1977 to 1981.

Cardinal Wetter was very happy when he got the news that Benedict XVI was elected.

Yes, he was very happy.

How was Benedict XVI when he was a child? Was he tranquil, naughty ...?

No, he absolutely was not nervous. He was an obidient child, very intelligent, he was very interested in studying, he was always an exemplary pupil. Reading and writing he liked a lot. And he had a great sense of duty. When we were small, yes we also quarreled sometimes. It would not be normal if we had not done that. But later on, we forgave each other.

And then came the vocation for priesthood for both of you. Was it during the war?

No, already before the war. Well, I am three years older than my brother. First of all, I was an altar boy, after that I was in the minor Seminary. My brother did the same route but with a delay in time, three years after me, but yes, for his own conviction.

What was the reaction of your parents before the priesthood of their two sons?

My parents said that they were not to influence us in our vocation. They always said that the children should follow their own path, the parents should help them to follow the path they they decided to take.

Did they thank God for the vocation of the two of you?

My parents thanked God for this during all of their life.

How did you live during the war? Was it difficult? They say that your brother was a member of the Hitler Youth. Could you explain to us how life was in Germany during these years so that we can understand it?

I was in the Hitler Youth by force. There were two types: the compulsary and the voluntary. Into that the children really joined voluntarily. Those who joined into the compulsary, like me, had many disadvantages. For example, at school you were not entitled to have any economic subsidy for your studies. You were given a notebook in which it said where you had to be and there you had to go. Once a week in the evenings, you had to take part in a kind of march-past. It was obligatory and you could not liberate yourself from it.

Well, the Third Reich wanted to have an influence in everything...

It was a dictatorship that today no one can understand. People talk about it today, but does not come to understand what it was.

I read that your mother was forced to adhere to the Fraternity of Women, a group that also was created during the Third Reich and in which it was obligatory to be a member. I think at there sometimes they prayed the Rosary.

In the countryside, everything was a little calmer, they did not talk about Hitler, sino que what they did was exchange cooking-recepies and they also prayed of course.

Did you know any Jewish people?

No, we did not know any Jewish people, there were not many Jews. Already as a grown-up, here in Regensburg, I got to know one who is a good person and with him I have a very good relation. But at that time, I did not know anyone.

Many people talk about the shyness of the new Pope.

He is very timid, that is his nature, but he is sociable, he feels fine with people. What he has is an air of tranquility, of calm.

Well, being timid does not mean being sad ...

Being shy means maintaining a little distance and not to push somebody around. And when you meet with someone, you do not tyranize, you are not demanding. Being a little discreet.

Who are his best friends?

His friends from Secondary School. He meets regularly with them every two years. Among them were five priests, four of them are already deceased, he is the only one who is still alive. Also, his fellows from the Seminary, those of the “quinta” (fifth [and final] grade (?)) of 1951. Even if we see each other very little, but the meetings are always very well appreciated, experienced from the heart.

Both of you are from Bavaria, and there beer is [considered] just like water ...

He almost does not drink beer, because it causes him a headache. He does not like alcohol and drinks little.

You did not expect your brother to be elected Pope?

No, absolutely not.

In those days there was much of a lottery about who would be the successor, much of a row ... It will also be a burden [for him], won’t it?

Really, one has to see the profound calling of God behind all of it. At a call by God one has to say yes, one has to be ready.

They say that he is hard and intransigent, do you also think he is?

This is wrong. He is always ready to look for common points [puntos de encuentro], to work for dialogue. But he also knows that there are limits. When a fundamental thing is taken into doubt, in this moment he shows absolute clarity. You can neiter question everything, nor doubt it all.

Can we understand then that it is this firmness in the Faith is that guides him?

Clearly, there are certain thing that do not change, the truth is the truth. The truth keeps itself.

Does he have a sense of humour?

Yes, he has a good sense of humour, he laughs [a lot] and he is very happy. He likes to be with people and likes to spend time with his friends.

The interview was conducted by María S. Altaba Javier Sanz

This is the link for the Spanish original, if someone would like to have a look:

www.alfayomega.es/estatico/anteriores/alfayomega448/especial-benedicto...

[Modificato da @Andrea M.@ 17/01/2007 18.33]

22/01/2007 01:54
 
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1954



24/01/2007 05:13
 
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THE CARDINAL AND THE SENATE PRESIDENT

When Joseph Ratzinger became Pope, one of the prominent Italians the media besieged for an interview about his friend, the new Pope, was Marcello Pera, the philosopher-professor who was Senate President then.

Just months earlier, towards the end of 2004, they had co-authored the book, Senza radici [Without roots], in which they wrote their thoughts about Europe's contemporary crisis, as originally articulated in a much-publicized exchange of talks at a lecture hall in the Italian Senate.

The cardinal and Pera, a confessed agnostic, both showed that faith and reason together are the ideal combination to ensure the well-being of man.

Pera has now been asked to write the preface for Ratzinger's book, "Europe in the crisis of culture" which will be the first Ratzinger book to be released after his election as Pope (he had written it earlier, of course).

In this interview with Stefano Lorenzetto of the Italian magazine Panorama, the Senate President speaks about his relationshhip with the new Pope, about his personality and his thought.


===============================================================

How did you meet Cardinal Ratzinger?
I first met him in 2003, and a mutual respect arose from that first encounter between two shy men. He was surprised that I had read his books. So we discussed relativism in the West, a topic that has interested me since I was a philosophy student.

What struck me most about him was his kindess, his gentleness, and above all, what had most impelled me to want to meet him - his intellectual rigor and courage. He spoke clearly and his judgments were sharp, even regarding the Church and the clergy.

Did you expect him to become Pope?
I desired it most sincerely! For the Church, for the millions and millions of Christians, for the young people who harmonized with the spirituality of John Paul II, and for the West. In particular for Europe, the narcotized beauty.

What do you think put Europe into this cataleptic state? Relativism?
That would be the most potent drug, yes. It sees all traditions and cultures as being equivalent, but then maintains that they cannot all be judged by the same measure! It's a conceptual monstrosity and a contradiction in logic. It's like saying that the world view of a terrorist or a fundamentalist has the same ethical merit as that of a democratic person. Against this relativist idea - which has also penetrated Christian theology - Benedict XVI is fiercely combative, and rightly so, I believe.

Will Benedict XVI be a conservative Pope?
He will certainly be about that which, for a true Christian, must be preserved: the faith, the truth of Christianity.

But how can a Pope who proclaims the truth of Christianity dialog with secular people?
Dialog is possible on the cultural and political levels, where the values derived from religion have been translated into secular values. Secularists do not have basic values different from believers - they simply justify these values differently. And that is why a dialog between believers and non-believers is possible.

Even on bioethics?
Yes. To kill a fetus is evil, for the believer as well as for the non-believer. To take life is a counter-value for everyone.

The Preamble to the European Constitution, as drafted, seems to allow everything, from gay marriage to euthanasia.
The head of the Spanish government, Jose Luis Zapatero, has cited Article 69 of that Constitution, which speaks of a generic right to marriage. I think of how that contrasts with the Italian Constitution which defines the family as the natural unit of society based on matrimony. If, according to the European Constitution, a right under the European Union prevails over national rights, then what will happen to us?

Is it possible that Benedict XVI will help promote the causes of the European right which looks on him favorably?
The European right is going through a crisis, but so is the whole political spectrum including the left. Is there still any meaning to labels like social demcorat, populist, convervative, liberal?

In any case, Benedict XVI can help the European right find its identity, so that it can then give that identity to Europe. The Pope's adversaries in the battle for European identity are the very adversaries of the right: the post-modernists, the post-Enlightenment types, the post-rationalists, the nihilists. almost all of whom militate towards the left.

For them to seek to involve the Pope in their games would be stupid, and they would be wrong to be deaf to his words and fail to meditate on them.

What would you tell the Pope now?
That I wish him success in his mission. He faces a terrible challenge. The Church experienced a great wave of spirituality and Christian identity at the death of John Paul II. It is Benedict XVI's task to transform that sentiment and channel it into Christian behavior practised individually as well as in families and societies.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/02/2008 03:50]
26/01/2007 17:56
 
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A Journey in the Footsteps of the Pope
Thanks to Rosa for the translation.
Traunstein / Bavaria -
People in traditional dress at the airport, pilgrims in sleeping bags, “Benedetto” cheerleaders in Munich’s Marienplatz – the images of Pope Benedict XVI’s Bavarian trip are still fresh. For those who could not see the head of the Church in the flesh, alternatives exist in his former homeland. For instance, in Traunstein, where the city offers guides to the footsteps of the Pope. For four Euro you can go by train from Traunstein to Hufschlag, to the former Ratzinger home and return by foot to young Joseph Ratzinger’s Primiz (first Mass) church.

Reporters and editors have swarmed everywhere. Because stories about home are now in demand: how a Bavarian boy became leader of a world church. Neighbors, acquaintances, former schoolmates show their photo albums. “The Pope was our neighbor,” “the Pope was my teacher.” Ratzinger, Joseph: a model student, with only first or second place marks; moderately underweight, though, as the school doctor determined, and to that extent a “weakling.” Gym lessons were a “real torture.” Painstaking research: Traunstein’s St. Michael seminary. He was spared for a while from Hitler Jugend duties, but then it was unavoidable; then, also involuntarily – like others of his age – Flakhelfer-generation.

Joseph Alois is not enough; the entire “Holy Family” – their common nickname in the neighborhood – is of interest: Father Joseph and Mother Maria, the siblings, Georg and Maria, who was called “Ladybird,” “because of her curly hair,” as a family friend, the former Bavarian minister of culture, explains. Above all brother Georg, apostolic protonotary, former Domkapellmeister and conductor of the Regensburg Domspatzen, is now in demand. Although he did not get along with the press before, especially not the “sensation journalists.”

On to the appearance on Bavarian Radio of Professor Hans Meyer of the Central Committee of German Catholics, whom you can always look forward to on such occasions. He habitually has flowery memories of young Ratzinger as “the boy with the voice of a bell” and his sister Maria: “We always called her ‘Mariakaeferle’ (Ladybird).” Her name because of? By no means. “Because of her curly hair,” discloses the Professor. Logical.

Our editor Sandra Schwaiger let herself be shown the Traunsteiner Benediktweg (Benedict road). "Most are vacationers, but now and then local residents are also on the road," says Marietta Heel at the moment when the local train chugs leisurely towards Hufschlag. She thinks back to the people with whom she followed the Traunsteiner Benediktweg. The native Traunsteinerin is one of three women, who, on behalf of the city, conducts guided tours from the former Ratzinger house in Hufschlag, past the little Ettendorfer church, up to Benedict’s Primiz church in the town square. "I had George Ratzinger in school as a religion teacher," Marietta Heel tells us, after we step off the train in Hufschlag and head for the former Ratzinger home. "He even wrote in my poetry album. I still have that today."

We have arrived at the house where the Ratzingers lived from 1933 to 1955. Multi-colored flowers bloom in front of the old farmhouse that dates from the early 1800s. A damson plum tree has difficulty bearing its sumptuous load of fruit. "The home was for us a paradise," wrote Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in his 1997 autobiography. From the bedroom on the first floor (second floor to Americans) young Ratzinger looked out on the Hochfelln and Hochgern, the "Traunsteiner local mountains." "I was here once with a group from Ecuador," remembers Marietta Heel. "They would dearly have kissed the soil in front of the house." The building would not be standing any longer, if today Joseph Ratzinger were not Benedict XVI. The old farmhouse has stood empty for 30 years, in the past year the owners went back and forth whether to tear it down. Marietta Heel feels that "It would have been unfortunate.”


A bicyclist comes up the road. A little too vigorously, Marietta Heel thinks. “You have to keep a little distance, this is private property,” she reprimands the man and points to the little red plaque on the corner of the property, that points out the same thing. “Forgive me,” the man says, as he parks his bicycle and wipes the sweat from his brow. On his back he carries a backpack from World Youth Day in Cologne. “I studied with the Holy Father – ages ago.” The man introduces himself as Hermann Joseph Lommertzheim from North Rhine-Westphalia, takes his backpack off his back and pulls out a well-thumbed volume. On the first page a dedication from 1978 can be read. “That makes me the happiest,” the retired religion teacher says, and points to the last words of the dedication. ‘’In fraternal solidarity,” it reads. When Lommertzheim speaks of his former professor, words like “sympathetic,” and “loving,” fall from his lips. The North Rhine-Westphalian is riding the 250 kilometer long Benediktweg; tonight he wants to reach Tittmoning. The highlight of the trip: Lommertzheim has tickets to all three liturgies that Benedict will celebrate in Bavaria. While the guided tour continues, the 67-year old remains full of piety.

“That is the young Pope’s path to school,” says Mariette Heel, continuing with her guided tour. Half an hour, that Joseph Ratzinger frequently used to repeat what he learned. “When I tell that story, everyone laughs and remembers how they themselves used to finish everything quickly, quickly, on the way to school.” The little Ettendorfer church stands picturesquely above Traunstein. “It’s said that their father used to go to church three times on Sundays.” Christmas Eve the family regularly celebrated in Ettendorf. Marietta Heel reveals that it’s also worth it to come here on New Year’s Eve. “From here you can see all the town’s fireworks.”

From here you can also see the tower of the archepiscopal seminary St. Michael. It has commonly been called a “priest’s seminary” by Traunsteiners, although the percentage of priests coming from the seminary from its founding to the present is around 10 percent. Joseph Ratzinger went to the boarding school in 1939, following his brother Georg. In his biography Ratzinger wrote that at first it was torture for him to be put in a study hall with sixty other boys.

We arrive in the lower part of the town, go down to the Kniebos, through the Jackturm and the Mittlere Hofgasse (street), to the “preacher’s house.” Georg Ratzinger occupied that house during his days as choirmaster of St. Oswald. In 1959 he took his parents in. A few months later his father died; his mother followed in 1963. Both were buried next to each other in Traunstein. In 1974 their remains were transferred to Regensburg.

We walk on to the last station, the town’s parish church, where the Ratzinger brothers celebrated their dual first Masses on July 8, 1951. “There was a big bicycle race that same day. Their parents were therefore afraid that no one would come.” It was a groundless worry. By 7 o’clock the church was already so full that it could barely hold the faithful. “I always say goodbye to the people on the tour in the church. Then they still have a little time for reflection,” says Marietta Heel.

20.09.2006

27/01/2007 03:36
 
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Thank you, Palma, for posting that interesting piece. I recall when Benedict was elected there were some stories in the media which noted that there was not the same sense of pride in Germany as there had been in 1978 in Poland when John Paul was elected; that many Germans did not believe he would make a good pope. I'm glad to see (and it is also evident from the number of German flags displayed at papal audiences and angeluses (angeli?)) that his countrymen take pride in him, as they certainly should! [SM=g27811]
28/02/2007 16:38
 
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JESUIT THEOLOGIAN RECOUNTS CONSULTING THE CDF PREFECT
PETRUS today has this APCOM item about a Jesuit theologian who remembers the former Prefect of the CDF with gratitude...




'When Cardinal Ratzinger helped me
avoid giving in to heterodoxy'



He had been described so often as the stern defender of Catholic orthodoxy, and yet when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained very kindly to a young theologian - who wa flirting with heterodoxy - that'theological research must know how to take risks."

This was recalled by Jesuit priest Paolo Gamberini at a presentation of his book, "Questo Gesu"(This Jesus) at the Pontifical Lateran University.

Special guest of honor at the presentation was Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who has been staying in Ariccio near Rome where he recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Since he retired as Archbishop of Milan in 2002, he spends most of the year in Jerusalem pursuing Biblical research.

At that time, Fr. Gamberini said, he had asked to see the Cardinal about a book he was writing on the Gospel of Luke.

"I decided to see him because I thought it best to speak ahead to the person who would pass judgment [on the orthodoxy of the book]. I was with him half an nour, but I felt very encouraged afterwards," he said.

He added that one should "have the humility to be in the Church, accepting even the difficulties - which there are and which one overcomes - because with the gift of perseverance, we can move ahead."

One of the consequences of meeting with Ratzinger was, he adds, "I had to weigh every word I wrote down in the book."

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/02/2007 21.13]

04/03/2007 03:08
 
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ALLEN ON RATZI IN 2002: HE'LL NEVER BE POPE!
John Allen,of course, has come a long way from 2000 when he wrote CARDINAL RATZINGER: THE VATICAN'S ENFORCER OF THE FAITH rather adversarially - the defender's defense and 'enforcement' of the faith offended Allen's liberal sensibilities.

So, rooting around today for items on Cardinal Biffi, I came across this 2002 column by Allen, which I had read for the first time in May 2005 and filed away, but at the time I first read it, my consciousness only took in what he wrote about Ratzinger, because Martini and Biffi were 'also-rans' and unlikely ever to become papabile again.

Now is a good opportunity to post it - especially for those who have not read it before - not only because Allen gives a very engaging account of Ratzi at this encounter, but also because of what he narrates later about Martini and Biffi - who each in their own way, have been associated with Benedict in the news lately. And what Allen says about them is really interesting, and shows us once again the extraordinary human beings who end up being Princes of the Church.

Here's Allen in 2002:


And now, three cardinals who won’t be pope
By John Allen
Mar. 22, 2002




It is fashionable among Vatican insiders to say, “The next pope is not yet a cardinal.” For one thing, it relieves the speaker of the burden of identifying a candidate among the present crop. (According to some reports, John Paul himself recently joked that his successor did not yet have a red hat).

A perceptive colleague recently observed that when I write about cardinals in this column, I almost always tip them as papabili — that is, candidates to be pope. Aren’t there any cardinals, my colleague wondered, that I don’t see as papal material?

Recent events offer me the chance to discuss three such men this week: Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Carlo Maria Martini, archbishop of Milan; and Giacomo Biffi , archbishop of Bologna.

All are strong leaders with solid intellectual credentials and a high media profile, and each could fill the “shoes of the fisherman.” Yet I suspect none is likely to be elected, though Ratzinger and Martini may draw a smattering of votes on early ballots.

Why? Because all three are divisive figures. Each would make a strong pope, leaving a clear personal imprint on the church. They could not help but be so; it is, like the story of the scorpion and the frog, in their nature. The result would be further polarization, further division, further acrimony.

I believe that after the long Wojtyla papacy, itself quite divisive, many cardinals want a period of calm. This doesn’t mean a weak pope, but a more unifying and pastoral figure who would let the church “breathe.”

(Note to readers: save this column. You may want to remind me of it if one of these guys is elected!)

* * *

I saw Ratzinger recently at the presentation of a new book by author Giuseppe Romano, entitled Opus Dei: Il Messaggio, le Opere, le Persone (Opus Dei: The Message, The Works, The People, San Paolo, 2002).

Ratzinger is a fan of the founder of Opus Dei, Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, set to be canonized Oct. 6. The book launch took place at the Augustinianum, just down the Via Paolo VI from the Holy Office, where Ratzinger works.

Ratzinger, who turns 75 on April 16, is weaker than when he took up his post 20 years ago. He has spoken wistfully about retiring to his home in Regensburg in Bavaria. In recent months he has turned over major chunks of responsibility to his lieutenant, Italian Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. Yet he was in good form at the Opus Dei event, speaking without a prepared text in polished Italian.

The cardinal devoted the gist of his talk to his admiration for the implied significance of the phrase “Opus Dei,” which means “Work of God.” Escrivá, Ratzinger suggested, realized that he was not doing his own work, but God’s. His task was to be an instrument.

Ratzinger contrasted this attitude with what he called a “temptation of our time, also among Christians,” to believe that after the “Big Bang” God withdrew from the world and left things to function on their own. But God is not withdrawn, Ratzinger insisted. We simply have to learn to put ourselves at God’s disposition, and that is the “message of very great importance” which Ratzinger attributed to Escrivá.

Ratzinger also praised Escrivá for his “absolute fidelity to the great tradition of the church,” while at the same time being open to the “great challenges of the world” in universities and various professional environments.

Ratzinger closed with an uncharacteristic personal touch. He confessed, as friends and students already knew, that he is a cat lover. Noting that the book on Opus Dei has a small chapter entitled the “invisible cat,” he joked that he was especially pleased with that section. (The reference, by the way, is to a phrase of C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves about the danger of assuming the existence of something despite the absence of proof, like an invisible cat on the sofa. The author, Romano, uses Lewis’ concept to refute the idea that Opus has a political agenda).

Afterwards I said a quick hello to Ratzinger, who has always been gracious despite my somewhat critical 2000 biography, Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of the Faith (Continuum).

I watched him walk back to the Holy Office in the company of his ever-present personal secretary, Msgr. Josef Clemens. I found myself thinking, once again, that few church leaders have helped shape their times the way Ratzinger has.

* * *

I saw Martini on March 13, the night before Ratzinger’s talk, at a Rome conference that brought together Muslims, Jews and Christians. It was part of a series sponsored by Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, on what the three monotheistic religions want “the other” to teach about them, and this particular evening was devoted to prayer and liturgy.

Martini, known for the soaring eloquence of his Italian, spoke instead in English, and offered some basic principles of how Catholic prayer and liturgy should be presented to non-Catholics.

He began by identifying three key sources:

- The Sacred Constitution on the Liturgy from the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which he called “still the best summary available on Christian liturgy.”

- The Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially the sections on the Eucharist (1135-1209, 1345-1419) and the section on Christian prayer (2558-2865), which he said represent “the best pages written in recent times on prayer.”

- The 1989 instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation. Martini said this document is a “true and simple explanation of what is beautifully contained in Christian prayer.”

Of the three, the third is the surprise. It made news in 1989 for its strong admonition against prayer techniques from either the New Age or Eastern traditions (it thus forms one milestone on the road towards Dominus Iesus).

Upon re-reading the document, however, I suspect that part of what Martini values is its clear emphasis that Christian prayer can never be a collapse into the self, or a flight from social responsibility.

“Contemplative Christian prayer,” the document says, “always leads to love of neighbor, to action and to the acceptance of trials, and precisely because of this it draws one close to God.”

Martini then turned to some “misunderstandings” to avoid. Chief among them, he insisted, is the desire to reduce the “profound mystery” of the Eucharist to tidy doctrinal formulae.

“I am not sure I understand exactly and profoundly what is going on,” he said. “I would not desire that the Eucharist should be the first thing one uses to show what Christian liturgy is. It is something so mysterious that it can be grasped only from within the Christian life.”

Martini pointed out that “not every prayer to God is a Christian prayer,” that for prayer to be Christian it must be made through Christ and reflect in some sense the teaching of the church.

The test of an authentic Christian prayer, Martini argued, is offered in the words of Jesus: “Thy will be done.”

“Every prayer must be measured against this rule,” he said. “Is it bringing me to identify with God’s will?”

In closing, Martini called inter-religious dialogue “more important than ever” after Sept. 11, to demonstrate that religion “is opposed to every kind of violence.”

As Martini spoke, a trembling in his right hand was noticeable, and sometimes he slipped his hand under the table to disguise it. These tremors recently made news around the world when Martini confirmed that he suffers from what he called a “Parkinsonism,” meaning a symptom associated with Parkinson’s disease. Many people concluded that Martini is gravely ill, which is not true. In fact, he enjoys the health of a “normal 75-year-old,” as Martini put it, and his performance last week confirms that he remains as sharp as ever.

* * *

Finally we come to Cardinal Giacomo Biffi of Bologna, a media favorite for his willingness to take strong positions and not mince words. He has suggested, for example, that would-be immigrants from Catholic countries such as the Philippines ought to have an advantage over people from Muslim nations such as Albania, as part of a strategy to defend the “Christian identity” of Italy.

He also once asked Catholic churches not to play music by Mozart, given suspicions the composer was also a Freemason.

Biffi is a curious fit in Bologna, which has long been seen as “Red Bologna,” the city that historically generated the highest percentage of votes for Italy’s Communist Party. It’s one of the few cities in the Western world where you can run into intersections such as “Leningrad Avenue” and “Workers’ Road.”

Yet Biffi has never shrunk from the challenge of his environs, and although he is seen as somewhat isolated even in a relatively conservative Italian bishops’ conference, he still cuts a striking figure on the public stage.

Sat2000, a Catholic television network in Italy, has recently been re-running some theological meditations by Biffi during a late-night time slot, and I have been making an effort to catch them. Several have been devoted to how Catholics ought to understand the figure of Jesus Christ.

My favorite aired last night, in which Biffi made bold to answer four questions:

How did Jesus dress?
With whom did Jesus spend time?
Where did Jesus eat and sleep?
Was Jesus good-looking or ugly?

Bottom line: Jesus, according to Biffi, was a well-dressed, handsome man of the middle class in antique Palestine, a homeowner who was equally comfortable with the simple and the mighty.

“Jesus was not St. Francis,” Biffi stressed, in contrast with those who see Jesus as an itinerant pacifist like the legendary 13th century saint from Assisi. “Francis had the aspect of a penitent. He was a different human type,” Biffi said.

Biffi argued that these conclusions come from an unvarnished reading of the gospels. I know scripture scholars who would draw different conclusions, but I think Biffi’s reconstruction is interesting whether it stands up on exegetical grounds or not.

Albert Schweizter, in The Quest for the Historical Jesus, famously observed that people who set out to find the “real Jesus” are like seekers gazing in a well, who “look to the bottom, and see their own image.” Hence what Biffi’s analysis tells us about Jesus is one thing; what it tells us about himself is another.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/02/2008 03:50]
04/03/2007 10:52
 
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This was a very interesting, enjoyable post, Teresa! Thanks!
Biffi's view of Jesus as a middle class Palestinian Jew is interesting. One finds so many different conclusions about Jesus' social "status" in present day Jesus studies, but, as in Biffi's case, a St Francis-type is not one them!
18/03/2007 20:30
 
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This story was originally posted by PALMA in POPE-POURRI. I have simply moved it to this thread, to go with all the other stories about Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope. I also moved Stupor-mundi's comment on Palma's post.
================================================================

18/03/2007 19.14
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RATZINGER'S YOUTH: "Nice, sweet, blond"

By Dominik Baur

22 April 2005

Thanks to Rcesq for the translation.
A Hitler youth on St. Peter’s Chair? Massacre of Jews under the eyes of the future Benedict XVI.? The associations which the British press tries to arouse in their readers after the election of a German Pope are violent. Contemporary witnesses paint another picture of the Pope’s childhood and youth. Anni Fischer lights a candle for Benedict XVI in her home. "I hope the cardinals lighten his workload."


Hamburg – Anni Selbertinger, who of course has not been called Selbertinger for ages, because she married more than 50 years ago, can still remember little Joseph Ratzinger. She is certainly the only surviving woman from Marktl who can attest to the new Pope’s first steps in this world. Stop, no, you can’t speak of steps, "He never left his footprints on the ground," says Anni Fischer today. "He wasn’t allowed to play with us." Maria Ratzinger, little Joseph’s mother, always carried her son in her arms while the other neighbor children ran around her. "I wasn’t allowed to touch him even once."

Pope Benedict, the untouchable? For sure, this much emerges from Fischer's stories, that Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Ratzinger, at least in his earliest years, was a very sheltered and coddled child – maybe even spoiled. Anni’s impression of the future pope: "nice, sweet, blond." The Selbertingers owned a general store, which bordered directly on property in the Bahnhofstrasse 14, where the Marktl am Inn police department was housed and also where the police family Ratzinger had its dwelling. On the first floor in front, the then-neighbor daughter remembers, was the parents’ bedroom. Here Ratzinger would have come into the world.

Because her parents worried more about the shop than about the children, little Anni and her sister Therese frequently took themselves over to the Ratzingers. "That was always such a nice family at home. They were so modest and friendly." The relationship with the Ratzingers’ daughter, Maria, was particularly close; Anni and she were first educated together in 1928. Like the brother, she remembers her friend, too, as a very delicate creature.

The children had loosened a few slats in the fence, so they could cross over more quickly. The girls often played in a simple garden arbor, while George, Joseph’s three years older brother, ran around them. But Joseph was always under a woman’s care – if his mother didn’t have the time, Marie Nannhammer, the owner of the Ratzinger’s house, gladly substituted as babysitter.

Completely unmilitary

Modest, reserved, friendly and, of course, pious: The few descriptions which the contemporary witnesses give of Benedict XVI’s early years, resemble each other. There are hardly any pictures from those days. Probably the oldest photo of the Pope may have been shot in 1930 in the kindergarten at Tittmoning; there’s also a picture of the schoolchild Ratzinger - after his first day at school in the municipality Aschau 1932. The residences of the family Ratzinger changed frequently, because the father was transferred again and again. Then, during the war, Joseph is sent to the archiepiscopal seminary St. Michael in Traunstein.

A photograph originates from this time, which British newspapers in particular like to print at present: Ratzinger as young Flakhelfer. The English street, which enjoys playing with anti-German resentment again and again, is visibly jubilant over this discovered bait. For them Ratzinger is now above all one thing: a former Hitler youth. "from Hitler youth to Papa Ratzi" headlined the Sun, right after the election of the German as head of the Catholic Church. The characterization that the Daily Mirror applies to the German comes across almost as a compliment: "God’s Rottweiler," the headline probably aims more at the arch-conservative image of the former boss of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith than at alleged Nazi involvement.

Indeed, Ratzinger was at least formally a member of the Hitler Youth. The seminar simply entered him in the party organization in 1941, Ratzinger writes in his books "Milestones" and "Salt of the Earth." The Bavarian never made a secret of this past. As soon as he left the seminary, he never appeared again with the Hitler Youth. But at age 16 Ratzinger had to serve as Air Force aide to the Flak. In the last winter of the war, he was even drafted into the infantry; however, he is spared service on the front. Shortly before the end of the war the young man defects and spends some weeks in an American prisoner of war camp. Not only the new Pope’s self-descriptions picture him as a completely unmilitary person, who appeared to be critically opposed to the Nazis, but the research of the American Ratzinger biographer John Allen also arrives at the same conclusion. The Catholic church historian Vinzenz Pfnuer speaks of the "grotesque branding of Ratzinger as a Nazi." And the Israeli minister of foreign affairs Silwan Schalom is likewise "sure that he is like his predecessor a powerful voice against all forms of anti-semitism."

It required courage

But today even the renowned, considered respectable "Independent" claims: With reference to a Traunstein historical writer, the London paper reproaches the Pope that in the city of his boarding school, as late as May 3, 1945, a thousand Jews from the abandoned concentration camps Buchenwald and Flossenbuerg were driven through the streets by the SS. 66 of them were murdered the next day. Nothing about this event appeared in Ratzinger’s 1997 autobiography. Whether the Pope was a witness of this crime, even whether he was in the city at that time, the "Independent" has nothing to say. It is to be accepted that Ratzinger was already in the prisoner of war camp. But why continue pursuing this topic? According to the paper, the choice of a German Pope, who consciously lived through Hitler’s time, arouses "substantial unease." Moreover, Ratzinger’s mentor, Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, supported the Nazis. Mentor? After all: Ratzinger was one of the young men who, in the summer of 1951, one year before Faulhaber’s death, was ordained priest by the cardinal.

"What is said in the British press is total trash,” says Munich resident walter Fried, 78. In 1943 he served together with Ratzinger in the same Flak battery in Obergrashof near Munich. His memories of today's Pope are vague, because the boy from Traunsteinwas a "very reserved, relatively inconspicuous figure." But Fried does remember one incident precisely: Once a senior officer came by for an inspection. Then one after another had to say what he wanted to become one day. Many, he did too, then claimed to want to have careers as pilots. That wasn’t questioned further. "When it was Ratzinger’s turn, he said that he would like to become a priest. That led to some derisive laughter. But at that time such an answer required courage."

Anni Fischer’s admiration for the neighbor boy on the throne in the Vatican is not touched by the attacks from England. She adores her Pope, lights a candle for him every day, and dreams of a pilgrimage to Rome. Above all, she worries about his health. “I hope he concentrates on being a figure head, and that the cardinals relieve him of a lot of work, so he isn’t overloaded.”

1981 was the last time she saw him face to face. The then-archbishop of Munich was at John Paul II’s side during a visit to the nearby Altoetting. Of course, Anni Fischer also went to the place of pilgrimage. When she saw the former neighbor boy, she called out in surprise: "Oh my, it’s the little Ratzinger!" And this time he even stood on his own two feet.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/03/2007 16.40]

18/03/2007 20:35
 
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18/03/2007 19.46
stupor-mundi

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Young Ratzinger's hair....

...That's strange, looking at young Joseph pics I used to think he had dark hair


[Modificato da stupor-mundi 18/03/2007 19.47]




"Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam " (Mt 16,18)
Nel menù di hitleriani e maomettani, gli ebrei, pochi di numero e relativamente deboli, sono soltanto l'antipasto: il piatto più consistente è a base di cristiani! (C. Langone)
EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS
20/03/2007 13:41
 
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How very lovely!!!!
What a beautiful article - makes my heart warm! I love the fact that this lady lights a candle for our Papa every day. I would too - if I didn't think Sixpence would knock it over when I wasn't looking!

I had never thought our Joseph's hair was blond; I thought it was brown when he was a child. I may be wrong.

Just so great to come to the forum and find this article today! Thank you so very much!!!!!

Luff and choy alvays!!!!! Mary xx [SM=g27811]

25/03/2007 16:21
 
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I remember that I have an another article in my collection also with Anna Fischer and others. I have this article from two years now.
I want to thanks to Rcesq for the translation of this and other articles.


The dream of a papal grotto

Cardinal Ratzinger’s homeland has Conclave fever.

Altoetting -- From the outset of the feverish hiatus without a pope, which the Conclave that begins this Monday will soon put to an end, Altoetting, the “heart of Bavaria,” has been beating faster than usual. The pulse rate increased markedly in the surrounding countryside too, because with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger a son of the area could ascend to the position of Vicar of Christ.

If the favorite from the Bavarian border region, who was born 78 years ago today, truly is called to be Karol Wojtyla’s successor, some of the glory will shine on many little places: As a policeman, the contentious theologian’s father moved from one village to the next. Thus, rural piety is a root of Ratzinger’s thought. “Our faith first took its color from the countryside,” he writes in one of his books.

“In the end, the Holy Spirit decides.”

About four years ago, the cardinal visited the Nikolaus church of the community of 2300 souls, Pleiskirchen, in the northwest corner of the Altoetting district. His brother George, who in 1951 was ordained a priest with him in the Freisinger cathedral and for many years led the Regensburger Domspatzen, was baptized there in January 1924. The 89 years old Anna Kieswimmer still sees the two boys’ father vividly in her mind’s eye: "a good policeman, tall and slender in his green uniform, but quite strict. I always hid, if he came on our farm,” she says.

When in 2001,the Prefekt of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith appeared in the village without advance notice, Kieswimmer’s twelve year old great-grandaughter Sonja at first did not dare approach the awe-inspiring man. “But then he came towards me and shook my hand,” tells the girl. Since them she cuts every article about the Cardinal out of the newspaper - just as her schoolmates collect football pictures or adore pop stars. "We know whom we would elect, eh?”says their great grandmother, and the little one nods.

When the Cardinal came into the world on Easter Saturday in 1927, the family had already moved to Marktl am Inn. The house, where he lived for two years, stands directly on the market place of the town of 2800 inhabitants. Anna Fischer, born in 1922, at that time lived next door. She can still picture the little Joseph - as a baby on the arm of his mother: "he was a quiet child, I never heard him cry." The 82 year old went to the elementary school with his older sister Maria and played with her in the Ratzingers’ vegetable garden. Once an enormous beetle crawled over her arm, and she wailed out loud. "Then the strict Mr. Ratzinger picked me up and simply lifted me over the picket fence," says Fischer. The mother, however, was a good-natured woman and every day brought a half-pint of milk to school for the delicate Maria. "Today, when I see the Cardinal, I find that he takes after his mother,” says Mrs. Fischer.

Today she continues to live some kilometers away in Burgkirchen, but she still possesses property in Marktl. With that has great plans, if Ratzinger were really to become Pope. She wants to set up tents for the many pilgrims who would then come to Marktl. And the old lady dreams of a grotto chapel like in Lourdes - made from limestone from the Inn.

Hubert Gschwendtner, 56 years old, is a mayor in Marktl and since then very much in demand for interviews. In the past few days how many members of the media have you had as visitors?" Gschwendtner says three television teams, two radio journalists and five newspapers. In the following hour the telephone rings twice - and two interviews are added.

As mayor of his birthplace he has met Ratzinger several times. For the first meeting, Gschwendtner read Ratzinger’s books and was deeply impressed by their intellectual level. “I
asked myself, what I could talk to him about,” according to Gschwendtner. In writing and speeches, Ratzinger tends to fence with a particularly delicate but sharply honed blade.
"However, in conversation he can step down immediately to a level where everyone is at ease," says Gschwendtner a little enviously. That the SPD politician considers the Catholic sexual morality outdated, he has not let the purple clad honorary citizen know directly: "I would be overtaxed to discuss that theologically."

The highways lead from Marktl into further villages and towns where the Ratzingers left traces. In Simbachers the parish priest Alois Messerer celebrates Mass -- his mother is a cousin of the ascetic Cardinal; In 1929 the family moved from Marktl to the picturesque Tittmoning, where Ratzinger, after a meeting with Michael Faulhaber, is said to have decided that he wanted to become a cardinal; then further to Aschau, where the little Joseph almost drowned in a carp pond; finally to Traunstein, where Joseph Ratzinger enrolled in the archepiscopal boys’ seminary.

Almost magically all these paths cross in Altoetting - symbol for the route of the former archbishop of Munich and Freising from the province in international Catholicism. Portuguese,
Italian, French flags decorate the roundabout, that one drives around into the town of 12,000 inhabitants. They refer to a group of European places of pilgrimage.

There are also critical voices about Ratzinger

Mayor Herbert Hofauer (Freie Waehler)(Free Voters party) lives currently in Washington, where a reproduction of the Black Madonna is displayed in a chapel. He experienced Wojtyla's death in his Polish homeland - in the twin city Tschenstochau, where 50,000 mainly young Christians
mourned. "A leaden mood lay over the place," tells Hofauer. Look briefly into the future: If the announcement “Habemus Papam,” really is followed by the name Ratzinger, Hofauer wants to invite the new Pope "immediately." After all, in November 1980, John Paul II gave 40,000 faithful his blessing in the Kapellplatz.

There are quite critical voices about Ratzinger in Altoetting. "He exuded a disposition -
breath-taking in its arrogant reserve,” says a former altar server, who assisted to the Cardinal twice. But the eyes of Reiner Troll, the seller of devotional objects, flash, when the name Ratzinger comes up. " My heart’s desire,” he exclaims. Above all, because Troll thinks him capable of the necessary internal-church reforms.

In Altoetting it’s said that the former parish priest Max Absmeier knows the Cardinal the best. “A simple man, who speaks our language,” is how the priest describes the possible pope. He does not speculate about his chances. No earthly gossip will affect the choice. “In the end only the Holy Spirit decides.”

[Modificato da =Palma= 25/03/2007 16.56]

27/03/2007 06:12
 
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WHAT HE REALLY SAID ABOUT BUDDHISM

Don't ask how I came across this item and picture tonight - one of those things when you're looking for something completely different, and something catches your eye, and you follow one hyperlink which leads to another, etc...anyway, I got to this,
which not only has a great picture, but also an equally great anecdote to go with it. If only because it clears up what turns out to be a mis-statement continually attributed to Joseph Ratzingerwhen it was, in fact, a case of wrong translation.

Anyway, let's let the Rev. Heng Sure, a Buddhist monk who has a blog called Dharma Forest, tell us, in this piece he wrote on April 20, 2005:



Pope Benedict XVI's Buddhist Encounter


On Feb. 13, 1999, then Cardinal Ratzinger, the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI, paid a visit to St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, to deliver a message to US Catholic educators.

Fr. P. Gerard O'Rourke invited me to attend as an interfaith observor. After the Cardinal's address Fr. Gerry led me downstairs to the reception and there introduced me to Cardinal Ratzinger.



The irony of our brief meeting was that only minutes before, Natonal Catholic Reporter's journalist (and now Vatican bureau chief) John Allen, Jr. had asked me for my response to the then-Cardinal's published comments that "Buddhism was an "autoerotic spirituality" that seeks "transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations." He asked me to comment on Cardinal Ratzinger's assertion that "Buddhism would replace Marxism as the church's biggest foe by 2000."

My answers to John Allen's questions were reported in the NCR (Vol. 35, No. 17, Feb. 27, 1999). The portion of the text of the article ran as follows:

"Representatives of other religions in San Francisco’s highly-diverse population were in Ratzinger’s audience. The Rev. Heng Sure, a Buddhist, told NCR he had come to “explore the possibilities for dialogue.”

In 1997, Ratzinger riled Buddhists when he called the religion an “autoerotic spirituality” that seeks “transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations.” He also suggested that Buddhism would replace Marxism as the church’s biggest foe by 2000.

Despite this background, Sure was ready to be gracious. “I think maybe he hasn’t met that many Buddhists. Face to face it’s a very positive thing and there’s a lot of potential,” he said.

“I’ve known some Buddhists in very high places who find Catholicism kind of cryptic. As soon as they meet some Catholics they say, ‘Oh, my goodness, here’s a human being who has something to share’ and this may be the same kind of thing.”

As for the unfelicitous phrase "autoerotic spirituality" it turns out that the Cardinal's views were written first in a French Catholic journal, and in French, the phrase "auto-erotisme" means "self-absorption," or narcissism. Unfortunately, the English-language press heard the term without benefit of translation and it came out sounding much more parochial than perhaps, it was intended.

The Cardinal looked like a shy and gentle man; he was clearly a scholar, and he had warm brown eyes. As Pope he may indeed get to meet more Buddhists and discover the blessing of interfaith understanding.

I hope that in his new capacity as spiritual father of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics that he celebrates and encourages the many Roman Catholic leaders the world over who bring the universal love of Jesus Christ in person to non-Catholics, by joining whole-heartedly in dialogue and friendship.

==============================================================

So, I wish one could device a 'worm' with this correction that one could send to every Web user who attributes the 'auto-erotic' quote to Ratzinger!

More interestingly, one Buddhist reader who reacted to the Reverend Sure's account had this to say
:

I can across a book review that referred to that quote. And it appears that Cardinal Ratzinger was misquoted up and down by multiple Catholic press authors:

"This tone is reinforced when Teasdale asks His Holiness about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s comments about Buddhism to the French press in 1997. Teasdale says that Ratzinger referred to Buddhism as a form of 'mental autoeroticism.' In fact, Ratzinger was not speaking about Buddhism as such, but about how Buddhism 'appears' to those Europeans who are using it to obtain some type of self-satisfying spiritual experience."

And now, how different the whole statement appears!

If someone has a copy of the original French interview or article in which Ratzi made this statement, it will be greatly appreciated.



[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/02/2008 03:51]
01/04/2007 23:28
 
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A picture from an old newspaper : after he was named archbishop of Munich and Freising by Pope Paul VI .




[Modificato da =Palma= 02/04/2007 0.26]

02/04/2007 08:20
 
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Made my day!!!!
I have this photo in smaller format! This one has made my day already. Vielen herzlichen Dank!!!!!!

Alle Liebe!
Mary xxx [SM=g27811]

02/04/2007 18:28
 
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Palma, WOAH!!!!!!!!!!!! What a picture!!!!!!!
[SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836] [SM=g27836]
Thanks! [SM=g27821]

"To believe in the brotherhood of man without the Fatherhood of God would make men a race of bastards." -Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

03/04/2007 17:38
 
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lovely pic,Palma!! [SM=x40798]
18/04/2007 12:57
 
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The 91-year-old Margaret Fleckenstein from Würzburg remembers the three personal meetings with the later pope Benedict XVI.
I am posting the pictures and Andrea the translated text.










==============================================================

While we're awaiting the article, here's a translation of the plaque.

Fragment of rhe ruined Altar of the Cross

Remembering the visit of
Prof. Joseph Ratzinger, Regensburg
on 10/28/1975

On the occasion of
the Ordination Jubilee of
Mons. Franz Fleckenstein,
he preached in this Church
on 1/5/1996.

In homage to the Holy Father
BENEDICT XVI


The pictures were presumably taken in Wurzburg. He may have concelebrated Mass in the Cathedral
at the time he visited in 1975. We'll see what the story is.

TERESA

================================================================

All pictures were taken in 1975 in Wurzburg.

[Modificato da =Palma= 18/04/2007 16.20]



Thanks, Palma. I wonder why there are no pictures for the 1996 event. TERESA

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/04/2007 0.04]

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