WELCOME! BENEDICT XVI., POPE EMERITUS Pope Francis on one of his visits to his predecessor Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in August 2022 ⬅️ Saintly Popes - Index Benedict XVI was born Joseph Alois Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, Marktl am Inn, Germany. He was bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013. In March 1977 he was appointed archbishop of Munich and Freising by Paul VI, who bestowed the cardinal’s hat on him three months later. On November 25, 1981, he was made prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by his friend Pope John Paul II (1978-2005), whom he had known well since 1977. The pope and his prefect shared a similar history, both having lived under totalitarian regimes, and their views concerning the church were substantially the same. For more than two decades, Ratzinger was the pope’s closest adviser. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for preserving Catholic doctrine an...