Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger(Pope Benedict) was born on 16 April, Holy Saturday, 1927, at 8:30 a.m. in his parents’ home in Marktl, Bavaria, Germany, at Schulstraße 11.
On the same day, he was baptized. He was the third and youngest child of police officer Joseph Ratzinger Sr. and Maria Ratzinger (née Peintner); his grandfather was German priest-politician Georg Ratzinger.
His mother’s family was from South Tyrol (now in Italy). Georg Ratzinger, Benedict’s elder brother, was a Catholic priest and former director of the Regensburger Domspatzen choir. Maria Ratzinger, who never married, was in charge of her brother Joseph’s household until her death in 1991.
Ratzinger was among a group of children who presented flowers to Cardinal Archbishop of Munich Michael von Faulhaber when he was five years old. He later announced that he wanted to be a cardinal after being struck by the cardinal’s distinctive garb. He attended the Aschau am Inn elementary school, which was renamed in his honor in 2009.
Pope Benedict XVI Illness: What Disease Did Pope Benedict XVI Have?
Pope Benedict has stated that he has health issues, but there is no information about the disease from which he suffers.
