My brother the Pope
(who wanted to be
a house painter)
Interview by ANDREA TORNIELLI
Translated from
September 28, 2008
REGENSBURG - "From the beginning, my brother has always been not only my companion but also a trusted guide. He has been for me a point of reference, who makes decisions with clarity and determination . he has always shown me the way, even in difficult situations."
With these words, last August 22, Benedict XVI thanked the mayor of Castel Gandolfo for having given honorary citizenship to his brother, Mons. Georg Ratzinger.
The Pope's 'trusted guide', who is the only remaining member of his immediate family, still moves about easily - despite being nearly blind - at his home on Luzengasse street in Regensburg, not far from the Cathedral where for 30 years he directed the famous boys choir Domspatzen, 'the sparrows of the Cathedral'.
Grey clouds have brought a chilly and autumnal downpour on this city, whose name re-echoed around the world in 2006 after Benedict XVI's famous lecture on faith and reason.
On the dot, Mons. Ratzinger, 84, is waiting to welcome us at the door at the appointed time for the interview. The small salon where he receives visitors is laden with pictures, parchments and sacred images. In the center is a smiling photo of his brother the Pope.
His only condition for this interview was for it 'to be brief', but nonetheless, he willingly answered a number of 'last' questions.
What is your first memory of your brother Joseph?
It was Holy Saturday in 1927. Starting before dawn that day, there had been a great to-do in the house and I could not understand what was happening. I wanted to get up, but my father said to go on sleeping because I now had a baby brother. So I did not see him till later - he looked tiny and fragile.
Later that day, he was baptized in the parish church of Marktl am Inn, the little town where we lived. It was raining, snowing hard, and windy, so my parents decided to leave me and my sister home to avoid getting sick.
What was he like as a boy?
He was lively, but not an earthquake. I remember him as always being cheerful. And he always had a great sensitivity for animals, for flowers, for nature. Perhaps that is why he always received toy animals for Christmas. His attention to nature and to living creatures is quite characteristic of him.
Can you tell us something about your family life and your parents?
We had a very close family. Our father was a police officer who came from an ancient family of peasants in Lower Bavaria. My mother was the daughter of artisans, and before marriage, she had worked as a cook.
Whenever possible, we children went to daily Mass. Then we ate breakfast together. The whole family would see each other again at lunch - according to Bavarian custom, we always had a soup first and then the main dish.
In the afternoons, we would do our homework, and then, my brother and I would go take a walk. Then we all dined together. There was no radio or TV then, and at nights, my father would play the zither. We sang a lot. But we all went to bed early.
What did your father think of Nazism?
He was a huge opponent from the very beginning. He understood right away that National Socialism would be a catastrophe - that not only was it a great enemy of the Church, but more generally, of every faith and of every human life.
You and Joseph had to join the Hitler Youth?
The State had decreed that all schoolchildren, depending on their age, should be enrolled in appropriate youth associations. When one reaches the obligatory age, everyone in the same age group becomes enrolled en bloc. One had no choice, and if one failed to present oneself, there would certainly be negative consequences.
My brother did not attend meetings and did not present himself at roll calls. This was a disadvantage for our family because we could no longer be entitled to a discount on school fees.
Is it true that a relative of yours was killed in Aktion T4, the Nazi program of euthanasia?
He was one of our cousins, the son of a sister of my mother. He was a lovable and happy child, but he was mentally retarded. He could not communicate properly or take part in conversations. I do not know anything more precise about his illness. And it was only much later that we learned the Nazis had come to take him from his house and that he ended up being killed in one of their camps.
In 1935, you entered the archdiocesan seminary in Traunstein, Joseph wrote in his autobiography, "I followed in his footsteps". How was his vocation born?
We were both altar boys and served Mass regularly. It soon became clear, first to me, then to him, that our life would be devoted to service to the Church.
But he also expressed the wish early that he wanted to 'be a cardinal'.
In Tittmoning, Joseph had received Confirmation from Cardinal Michael Faulhaber, the great Archbishop of Munich. He was very impressed and so he said that he too wanted to be a cardinal one day.
But just a few days after that meeting, while watching the man who was painting the walls of our house, he also said that he wanted to be a house painter.
In his autobiography, Joseph also calls sports 'a true torture' for him and that he did not like physical activity.
I can certainly say that neither me nor my brother were meant for sports. Perhaps because we were never robust, but rather, we were always among the smallest and weakest boys in our respective classes. We could not keep up with the physical rhythm of our classmates.
What was the impact of the Second World War on the life of your brother and yourself? =
It tried us very deeply, even when we were still at home. We barely had enough food. We had a coupon for monthly rations of sugar, butter, cooking oil and some meat. At night, we had to shut the windows so that the homes would not be visible to Allied airplanes.
I was first called to the labor service and then to military service. My brother was conscripted some time later. Of course, our ideals and objectives were completely the opposite of Hitler's but we were made soldiers against our will, so we could not wait for the war to end.
How did your passion for music get started?
In our family, we all loved music. I already told you my father had a zither that he used to play at night. We sang together. It was always an event for us.
In Marktl, there was a musical band which fascinated me a lot. I always thought that music was one of the most beautiful things God had created. And of course, my brother has always loved music. Perhaps I also 'infected' him in some way.
You were both ordained priests on June 29, 1951 in the Cathedral of Freising. What do you remember of that day?
It was a very joyful day which moved us profoundly. The beautiful weather put us all in good spirits. There were more than 40 of us and we had all prepared together for this consecration. We were all very happy that we had achieved the goal for which we had prepared ourselves for years and that we anticipated so much. And now, it was all coming true.
We entered the Cathedral of Freising whose great bell - named for St. Corbinian - had rung out early in the morning to wake the city up. Its pealing created a festive atmosphere. Our whole family was there - our parents and our older sister. It was simply unforgettable.
Joseph Ratzinger, as cardinal and Pope, has spoken so much of the common links between Judaism and Christianity. Did your family have any Jewish contacts?
It's a theological fact that the Jews were God's chosen people and that from that people would be born Jesus, generated by the Virgin Mary. But I must admit that in those years, we knew about Jews only from religious instruction. There were no Jews in our area so we had neither any contacts nor experiences with them.
Nor did we know about the pogroms against the Jews and of the injustices against them by the Nazis. We were all in the dark about those things.
At the time of the Second Vatican Council, your brother was called 'a teenage theologian', and was considered among the progressive theologians, as an expert consultant for Cardinal Frings. What memories do you have of Vatican-II?
I don't know who came up with the expression 'teenage theologian' about my brother. At that time, of course, I was not in Rome. I only went there once together with Joseph and some German professors who were also providing expert advice at the Council.
It was clear that there was a need for an opening to the world, for theological development. My brother contributed to all this with all his spiritual intensity. I think he was among those who contributed new ideas - ideas which were integral to our convictions of the Catholic faith - and some credit should go to him.
In the immediate period after the Council, Professor Ratzinger came to Tuebingen, to a theological faculty that then became transformed into an 'ideological center' for Marxism. Did your brother change in those years?
No, he did not. The youth of Germany were in a state of turmoil. The impulse for change that marked the Council was manifested quite forcefully among lay Catholics. Young people in Europe at the time lived in an unstable climate, uncontrolled.
The dominant idea was that everything should change, innovations had to be introduced. My brother approved those that were good but not those that are irreconcilable with the faith. The idea that the Council should only bring innovation was wrong, because the goal of the Council was to make the Church able to meet the problems of modern times but with the same faith as it has always been.
Your brother then left Tuebingen to come to teach in Regensburg - and you were all reunited.
I still recall that evening when Joseph and our sister Maria arrived in Regensburg, at the Hotel Karmeliten. After rehearsals with the Domspatzen, I went to their hotel - we were so happy to be together again.
The following Sunday, I visited them again - they had to live in the hotel until their new accommodations were ready. It was a beautiful time. The students were very welcoming to my brother - they considered him someone from whom they would learn a lot.
Who inspired your brother as a professor?
As a student he was very inspired by some French theologians. He considered as models above all the Frenchman Henri de Lubac and the Swiss Hans Urs von Balthasar.
But the center of his studies was always Sacred Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. In his university days, he tried to rediscover this patrimony, to bring it out of near oblivion and revive it.
What does liturgy mean to the Ratzinger brothers?
Liturgy, the Mass, represents the fulcrum of our faith and actions - it is our personal encounter with God. Naturally, this comes first. We cannot imagine a day with Mass, with liturgy - it would be impoverished, devoid of the essential...
Why did Benedict XVI want to liberalize the use of the old Mass with his Motu Proprio?
At the time of the liturgical reform, the changes came too fast, and it was not easy for everyone to accept them. Overnight, the old liturgy was replaced with a new one - which we have now come to love and which we celebrate with joyous participation.
But there were those who could not accept that 'leap' because the loss of the old liturgy deprived them of something that had sustained their faith.
It was, in part, in order not to leave these persons abandoned, to re-integrate them fully into the ecclesial community, that my brother decided to liberalize the pre-conciliar liturgy.
Did you expect Joseph's election in the conclave of April 2005? How did you react?
I must admit I never expected it and that I was rather disappointed...
Disappointed that your brother became Pope?
Let me explain that. In view of the heavy responsibilities of the papacy, I understood right away that our relationship would be appreciably re-dimensioned. But in any case, behind the human decisions of the cardinals, I knew there was the will of God, and to that, we should say Yes.
Has your relationship changed?
In the past, he always spent a few weeks of the year in Germany, in his house in Pentling, which is a few kilometers from here. Now he can no longer do that. But he was able to visit the house for a couple of hours in September 2006 when he came to Bavaria.
On Sundays, I often go to the house in Pentling, go through the rooms, and then I call Joseph to tell him what I am able to see with my limited eyesight, and I assure him that everything is beautiful. But it is a piece of himself that he has had to give up.
May I ask you what was the first thing the new Pope said to you after he was elected?
Forgive me, but I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what it was - my memories of those days are confused. The telephone and the doorbell never stopped ringing. It was a terrible time. I stopped answering the telephone.
So when the new Pope called, it was my housekeeper, Frau Heindl, who took it. My brother wanted to speak with me, but it was Frau Heindl who was able to congratulate him first.
Can you tell us how you spent the holiday in Bressanone this summer? Everyone says you both seemed to enjoy it.
We had both spent so many vacations together in Bressanone and lived in the same seminary where we lived this year. But previously, we could go out freely and take walks and visit churches. And that is no longer possible now that he is Pope.
So we had to stay in and take our walks in the seminary gardens. But it was great to do so, even if I have problems walking now. I have problems with my eyes and with my legs.
Has your brother become accustomed to being the Pope?
Yes, he adapted quite fast to his new condition. All he had to do was say Yes to the new order of things. He lives it as God's will and he puts everything he can into it.
Was there a particular preference in your family for the name Benedict?
For that name, no. But several years ago, my brother said to me, "Benedict would be a good name for the next Pope". He does not remember it now, he says, but I do.
[Peter Seewald has also recounted that Cardinal Ratzinger told him the same thing a few weeks before John Paul II's death.]
The words that the Pope most often repeats are joy, love and beauty. They certainly don't go with the image of the Panzerkardinal with which he was described for years.
Of course, that image never corresponded to reality, He has never been brusque - he never intends to offend others. He has always had great respect for the opinion of others. But media often create these wrong images of people.
Which Pope do you think has your brother loved most?
His immediate predecessor, John Paul II, with whom he worked closely. I think he was of great help to him, and with his theological knowledge, he was able to advise him well. They shared a solid purpose, a common orientation. Their vision of the faith makes them call things what they are.
Has your brother ever spoken to you about Papa Luciani?
Yes. Once the future John Paul I visited my brother when we were on vacation in Bressanone after he became Archbishop of Munich. He found Papa Luciani a man of great heart, a very genuine person, and my brother loved his humanity.
Can I ask you how does it feel to the brother of the Pope?
It's something with repercussions, with consequences... When I go out, I always meet people who greet me very kindly. Most of all, Italian tourists. They greet me as the Pope's brother and are very kind... Yet none of this is about me, of course.
Did you ever imagine this?
No. I didn't expect it, and we could never have imagined it! First of all, it would have been most unusual that a German would become Pope - there hasn't been one in centuries. This was an honor that was completely beyond anything we expected.
Apropos, here is a profile of the Pope written on the occasion of the third anniversary of his election last April. I came across it tonight while googling something else - and is obviously one of many articles I must have missed on that occasion, since I was all caught up at the time in the Pope's visit here in the USA.
It's well-meaning but it rehashes many known facts/events rather haphazardly and imprecisely (if not erroneously).
The Pope who would rather think and write
18 Apr 2008
But for a simple twist of fate, Benedict XVI, the first German Pope for 1,000 years, would be pulling on a different white outfit every day.
While religion filled his life from the moment of his birth, as a young boy Joseph Ratzinger's heart was set on becoming a painter and decorator.
"Ideas often change radically," he said. "At some point, a house painter who painted a wall impressed me so much I wanted to emulate him. A child bases himself on what he sees."
Soon, another sight dazzled the five-year-old Bavarian and diverted his path away from paintbrushes and towards becoming the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, in which capacity he is now on his first visit to the United States.
On a sun-dappled spring day in 1932, a black limousine swept into the square of Tittmoning, a small town near the Austrian border where young Joseph's father, a policeman, had been stationed.
Inside the car was the man who would ordain the young German into the priesthood 19 years later, Cardinal Michael Faulhaber, then the Archbishop of Munich.
"He came home and told our father that night, 'I want to be a cardinal'," recalled his elder brother, Father Georg Ratzinger.
"It wasn't so much the car, since we weren't technically minded," he said. "It was the way the cardinal looked, his bearing, and the garments he was wearing that made such an impression."
At the time, the Ratzinger family was living in near poverty, with the Second World War looming.
"The house was very nice, but it was extremely uncomfortable to live in," said the Pope many years later.
"For my mother it was really awful. Every day she had to drag coal up two long flights of stairs."
His cousin, Erika Kopp, said he pursued his dream relentlessly.
"Why not Pope?" she teased him about his ambition.
Now 81, Joseph Ratzinger is a reluctant pope. He has often spoken of how he would prefer to spend his final years thinking and writing in Germany.
Instead, his mission is to lead the Church through one of its most challenging periods, with falling numbers of priests and worshippers.
Almost nothing is known about his private life, except that he loves to play the piano.
Rumour has it that he sneaks out of his papal apartments to visit a cat sanctuary in Rome.
Three years into the job, the side he presents to the public is enigmatic. Compared to his charismatic and media-friendly predecessor, John Paul II, the Pope is almost impossible to pin down.
He has prayed in the Blue Mosque while facing Mecca and yet has offended Muslims.
He baptised a prominent Muslim journalist as a Catholic at the moment of greatest media exposure: Easter.
In the 1960s he was one of the great
liberal forces behind the Second Vatican Council, but then went on to slap down independent doctrinal thought at the helm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department that used to be
known as the Inquisition.
[First, he was never liberal, though he had some progressive ideas for the Council. Second, the CDF was known as the Holy Office; the Inquisition was a program carried out under the Holy Office in Rome, distinct from and much milder than the infamous Spanish Inquisition which was completely a Spanish institution.]
His reintroduction of the Latin Tridentine Mass appalled his own Latinist [WHO????], who said the return to the ancient rite would make "all hell break loose".
And although he is seen as a terribly serious theologian, there is often a twinkle in his eyes.
"God wants to prod us into taking things a bit more lightly, to see the funny side and to get down off our pedestal and not forget our sense of humour," he said.
John Allen, who has written a biography of the Pope, said: "Benedict doesn't speak in sound bites but in tersely crafted paragraphs.
"To understand what he's trying to say, you actually have to listen from start to finish, which is very much a challenge to our sound-bite culture.
"That's why there is a tremendous gap between what the Catholic insider knows about him and what the average person knows."
His involvement in controversy included a speech at Regensburg University, where he quoted a critique of Islam as an "evil and inhuman" religion.
His hardline stance against abortion overshadowed his trip to Brazil and he
offended indigenous people in Latin America [just some politically motivated groups claiming to represent the indigenous peoples] by suggesting that the conquistadors had purified them with religion.
His quiet, teutonic refusal to curb his tongue or behave politically was forged during his time at the great Catholic teaching universities at Bonn, MuEnster, Tübingen and Regensburg.
Widmar Tanner, a biology professor at Regensburg, remembers him as "very friendly, an exceptional speaker, but very modest. When he made his argument he made it brilliantly, and when we argued, he usually won."
The Pope, who calls himself a "perfectly ordinary Christian", said that there were no lightning bolts of revelation about his future career, and that he contemplated the priesthood for many years, driven by a desire to teach and write.
Joseph Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927, the second son of Joseph Ratzinger Sr and his wife Maria. "My father was a very religious man," he said.
"On Sundays he went to Mass at six, then to the main liturgy at nine, and again in the afternoon."
His birthplace, Marktl am Inn, was a small town close to Regensburg, where as many as 70 per cent of people are practising Catholics.
"My heart beats Bavarian," the Pope once said.
Both Joseph and his brother went to boarding school.
"It wasn't easy for me," he said. "You learn a different kind of social interaction, and also how to fit in.
"We also had, in homage to the modern idea of education, two hours of sports. It was a true torture."