Joseph Ratzinger's Early Career
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, was born at Marktl am Inn, Diocese of Passau (Germany) on 16 April 1927 (Holy Saturday) and was baptised on the same day. His father, a policeman, belonged to an old family of farmers from Lower Bavaria of modest economic resources. His mother was the daughter of artisans from Rimsting on the shore of Lake Chiem, and before marrying she worked as a cook in a number of hotels. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Traunstein, a small village near the Austrian border, thirty kilometers from Salzburg. In this environment, which he himself has defined as "Mozartian", he received his Christian, cultural and human formation.
His youthful years were not easy. His faith and the education received at home prepared him for the harsh experience of those years during which the Nazi regime pursued a hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church. The young Joseph saw how some Nazis beat the Parish Priest before the celebration of Mass. It was precisely during that complex situation that he was said to ahve discovered the beauty and truth of faith in Christ; fundamental for this was his family's attitude, who always gave a clear witness of goodness and hope, rooted in a convinced attachment to the Church. In 1941 and 1942 Ratzinger was a member of the the Hitler Youth, Nazi Party's main organization for indoctrinating young people. Enrollment was mandatory for high school age students.
He was required to leave seminary at the age of 16 and forced into military service for Nazi Germany. During the last months of the war he was enrolled in an auxiliary anti-aircraft corps unit that guarded a BMW plant outside Munich. He was sent for a short time to the Austrian-Hungarian border to set tank traps. He risked grave danger by deserting from the Nazi anti-aircraft corps in 1945 after being shipped back to Bavaria, and subsequently spent time in an Allied prisoner of war camp.
From 1946 to 1951 he studied philosophy and theology in the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology of Freising and at the University of Munich. He received his priestly ordination on 29 June 1951. A year later he began teaching at the Higher School of Freising. In 1953 he obtained his doctorate in theology with a thesis entitled "People and House of God in St Augustine's Doctrine of the Church". Four years later, under the direction of the renowned professor of fundamental theology Gottlieb Söhngen, he qualified for University teaching with a dissertation on: "The Theology of History in St Bonaventure".
After lecturing on dogmatic and fundamental theology at the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology in Freising, he went on to teach at Bonn, from 1959 to 1963; at Münster from 1963 to 1966 and at Tübingen from 1966 to 1969. During this last year he held the Chair of dogmatics and history of dogma at the University of Regensburg, where he was also Vice-President of the University.
Already in 1962 he was well known when, at the age of 35, he became a consultor at Vatican Council II, of the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joseph Frings. From 1962 to 1965 he made a contributions to Vatican II as an "expert"; being present at the Council as theological advisor of Cardinal Joseph Frings. His intense scientific activity led him to important positions at the service of the German Bishops' Conference and the International Theological Commission. In 1972 together with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and other important theologians, he initiated the theological journal "Communio".
On 25 March 1977 Pope Paul VI named him Archbishop of Munich and Freising, the first diocesan priest in 80 years to take over the pastoral ministry of this large Bavarian diocese. On 28 May of the same year he received episcopal ordination. He was the first Diocesan priest for 80 years to take on the pastoral governance of the great Bavarian Archdiocese. He chose as his episcopal motto: "Cooperators of the truth". He himself explained why: "On the one hand I saw it as the relation between my previous task as professor and my new mission. In spite of different approaches, what was involved, and continued to be so, was following the truth and being at its service. On the other hand I chose that motto because in today's world the theme of truth is omitted almost entirely, as something too great for man, and yet everything collapses if truth is missing".
Ratzinger was created and proclaimed Cardinal by Paul VI, with the priestly title of "Santa Maria Consolatrice al Tiburtino", during the Consistory of 27 June 1977 of the same year. Ratzinger came from the conservative wing of his church. As a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, an organisation descended from the holy inquisition. He worked closely with Pope John Paul II and was known to share many of his views. On 25 November 1981 he was nominated by John Paul II Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; President of the Biblical Commission and of the Pontifical International Theological Commission. Elected vice dean of the College of Cardinals on November 6, 1998, the Holy Father approved Cardinal Ratzinger's election, by the order of cardinal bishops, as dean of the College of Cardinals on November 30, 2002.
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