Pope Benedict XVI

Popularly Known as “Green Pope”
Born	16 April 1927, Marktl, Germany .
Birth name	Joseph Ratzinger
Ordination	29 June 1951
Elevated to Cardinal	On 27th June 1977, Pope Paul VI,
Papacy began	19 April 2005
Predecessor	John Paul II
Motto	“Cooperatores Veritatis “ , ( Cooperators of the Truth )

Pope Benedict XVI

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 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". On 24 March 1977, Fr. Ratzinger was elected Archbishop of Munich and Freising by Pope Paul VI. He was ordained to the episcopal Order on 28 May 1977, taking  as his motto a phrase from 3 John 8, "Fellow Worker in the Truth."  On 27 June 1977, he was elevated to Cardinal (Cardinal Priest) by Pope Paul VI, with the titular church of St. Mary of Consolation (in Tiburtina) John Paul II named him Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and of the International Theological Commission on 25 November 1981 He was President of the Preparatory Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which after six years of work (1986-1992) presented the new Catechism to the Holy Father. On 19 April 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected the Bishop of Rome and the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church.