Too conservative for some, pro-intellectual for others, Benedict XVI came to Peter’s chair after a complex vital evolution. A member of the Hitler Youth in his youth, where he had to enroll like other teenagers in his native Bavaria, the young Joseph Ratzinger developed an early religious vocation and was ordained a priest at age 24. Studious and reflective, he received his doctorate in Theology with a thesis on Saint Augustine.
He was guardian of orthodoxy as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Holy Office, from which he came to the papacy already long-lived, at the age of 78, in 2005, when he succeeded John Paul II, whose hand it was right. After a contentious pontificate, he announced his resignation on February 11, 2013, shocking the institution and perplexing the world.
