LITTLE INFO ABOUT POPE BENEDICT XVI

Name:  Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger
Birthday:  April 16, 1927
Birthplace:  Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Germany
Father:  Joseph Ratzinger, Sr.
Mother:  Maria Peintner
Siblings:  Older brother Georg and 
              older sister Maria who died in 1991
Priestly ordination:  June 29, 1951

cc photo by Sergey Gabdurakhmanov on flickr

- He obtained his doctorate in Theology with a thesis entitled "People and House of God in St. Augustine's Doctrine of the Church" in 1953.


- Appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising in March of 1977 by Pope Paul VI.


- Received episcopal ordination on May 28, 1977.

- Made Cardinal by Pope Paul VI on June 27, 1977.


- Appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and of the International Theological Commission on November 25, 1981 by Pope John Paul II.


- Elected Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals on November 6, 1998.


- Elected Dean of the College of Cardinals on November 30, 2002.


- Elected Pope on April 19, 2005.

- Announced his resignation as Pontiff on February 11, 2013.

- Pope Benedict XVI step down as Pope on February 28, 2013.

cc photo by Catholicus Fluminensis  on flickr

Reckon up the priests from the days that Peter sat, and in their ancestral ranks, note who succeeded whom; for that is the rock over which the gates of hell shall never prevail.

                      -St. Augustine

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References:
- Time, May 2, 2005, Vol. 165, No. 17
- http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/biography/index_en.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_XVI