Of
Heribert Prantl
The city of Regensburg has a Roman charm, and you have to know that if you want to understand Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, who was known as Pope Benedict XVI. in Rome was the 264th successor of St. Peter. Ratzinger’s home was in the Bavarian-Roman city of Regensburg before he became Pope, and here, in Regensburg-Pentling, he had his own house since 1970; this was his registered German address, even after the papal election in 2005. This has to do with the Rome feeling that one has in this city: Regensburg was, at the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the seat of the third Roman legion; “Metropolis” was what a religious historian called the city in the 11th century. Later it became the center of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The city has an unbelievable density of churches and monasteries – that’s why it was and is the city of Catholic dogmatics. The Catholic bishops there were and are dogmatists; and Joseph Ratzinger was the star of the strict Catholic dogmatics of the 20th century; however, he did not carry on the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, but rather frozen it.