Politics: Pope Benedict XVI

Career and Ambition
Joseph Alois Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927 in Bavaria, Germany to a family of a local police officer. His youthful years were not easy. In 1941, Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth Organization as membership was required at that time. In 1943 he was also enrolled in Nazi’s auxiliary anti-aircraft corps, and trained in the infantry. In 1945, as the war drew to an end, Ratzinger went back to his family's home in Traunstein. Being a German soldier, he was put in a prisoner of war camp, but was released a few months later in the summer of 1945. 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. On March 25, 1977 Pope Paul VI named Ratzinger Archbishop of Munich and Freising. Pope John Paul II named him Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office (the historical Inquisition), and President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and of the International Theological Commission on November 25, 1981. On February 15, 1982 Ratzinger resigned the pastoral governance of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The Holy Father elevated him to the Order of Bishops assigning to him the Suburbicarian See of Velletri-Segni on April 5, 1993.

Teachings
June, 2005 Pope Benedict XVI, offering his first detailed critique of gay unions: ''The various forms of the dissolution of matrimony today, like free unions, trial marriages and going up to pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex, are rather expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man," he said, speaking at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. The pope also criticized artificial contraception and said ''the greatest expression of freedom is not the search for pleasure." On July 2006 in Valencia Spain when asked about the role of gay marriage in society, the pope told reporters: "According to human nature, it is man and woman who are made for each other to give humanity a future."

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Those words were originally said by a Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, Pope Benedict XVI offered the above quote, in his academic speech, "Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections" delivered in Germany in September 2006. Using the quote elusively he neither endorsed nor condemned it. Whatever the pope's purpose was in using the quote in his speech, he prompted the furor in the Muslim world; religious and political authorities widely condemned the speech. Muslims all over the world in England, in Turkey, in Kuwait, in Somalia, in India, in Iran and other countries voiced their discontent pointing once again how Catholics are offensive and disrespectful.

On May 2007 Pope Benedict warned Catholic politicians they risked excommunication from the Church and should not receive communion if they support abortion. On September 2007 Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to Vienna, Austria, said that the "fundamental human right ... is the right to life itself," adding, "This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right - it is the very opposite." Under Church law, someone who knowingly does or backs something which the Church considers a grave sin, such as abortion, inflicts what is known as "automatic excommunication" on themselves.

In public, during the pontiff's first pastoral visit to Brazil, the meetings between Pope Benedict XVI and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have been all handshakes and smiles, but behind the scenes, the Vatican and the Brazilian government seem to very much disagree on the role of Roman Catholic Church in the country that has the largest Catholic population in the world. According to Brazilian government officials, when the two men met in Sao Paulo in May 2007, Benedict told Mr. Da Silva that the Vatican would like to see religious instruction added to the curriculum of Brazilian public schools as an obligatory subject. The president politely replied that Brazil is officially a lay state, with freedom of religion guaranteed by the constitution. Pope’s trip to Brazil turned out to be a disappointment for Vatican. Catholic Church faces great challenges also in Europe where according to figures compiled by the church the number of Catholics who attend Mass regularly has slipped to as low as 20 percent, and in a few cities, like Paris, has reached as low as the single digits. United States always were a safe haven for Roman Catholic Church, and so the Pope is coming to New York on April 18, 2008 to make his appearance this time before an eager audience.