Benedict XVI

Life

He was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Germany, the son of a police officer. In 1943, at the age of sixteen, he was conscripted into an anti-aircraft unit. After the war he studied theology with his older brother Georg, and on June 29, 1951, the two brothers were ordained to the priesthood together. In 1953 he earned a doctorate in theology with a study of the ecclesiology of Augustine, and he went on to teach dogmatic theology at the universities of Bonn, Münster, Tübingen, and elsewhere.

In 1977 he became Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and that same year Pope Paul VI made him a cardinal. In 1981 John Paul II called him to serve as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department of the Roman Curia that oversees Catholic doctrine. On April 19, 2005, he was elected the 265th pope, the first pope from the German-speaking world in 482 years. In February 2013 he resigned, citing his health. It was the first time in 598 years, since Gregory XII in 1415, that a pope had stepped down during his lifetime. He thereafter lived as pope emeritus in a monastery in the Vatican until his death on December 31, 2022, at the age of 95.

Ministry and Contributions

A prolific theologian, he published more than sixty books, including Introduction to Christianity and Jesus of Nazareth. As pope he issued the encyclical Deus Caritas Est ("God Is Love"). An encyclical is an official document addressed by the pope to the Church throughout the world. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he took a clearly conservative stance against Latin American liberation theology and against secularism.

The document most often discussed in connection with Protestantism is Dominus Iesus ("The Lord Jesus"), a declaration issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2000, while he was its prefect. The declaration referred to Protestant communities not as "Churches in the proper sense" but as "ecclesial communities." At the same time, it stated that those baptized in these communities are in a certain, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church, and that the Holy Spirit uses these communities as means of salvation.

Influence on the Korean Church

His ties to Korea ran chiefly through the Catholic Church in Korea. At his inaugural Mass in 2005, Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, representing the College of Cardinals, pledged obedience to the new pope. In 2006 he made Archbishop Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk of Seoul a cardinal, and that same year he called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula by peaceful means. Because of health concerns, he did not visit Asia during his pontificate.

Assessment

Within the Catholic Church he is regarded as a theologian pope who defended the orthodoxy of the Catholic faith. At the same time, he was consistently criticized as excessively conservative. His handling of sexual abuse cases within the Church and his opposition to condom use, even in regions affected by the spread of AIDS, drew criticism.

Protestant leaders and theologians in many countries criticized Dominus Iesus as harmful to Christian unity. Catholic defenders countered that the declaration merely restated the teaching of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Some Protestants also held that the declaration did not deny that Protestants are Christians, but was rather a candid statement of the Catholic Church's long-standing position.