Pentling/Rome (dpa/lby) - A delegation from the Regensburg home diocese of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. traveled to Rome for the funeral service. They said goodbye to their honorary citizen on Wednesday, said Sebastian Hopfensberger, deputy mayor of the Pentling community (Regensburg district). At the laid-out corpse, they were greeted by Georg Gänswein, the longtime private secretary and confidant of the Pope Emeritus, and thought of the deceased for a while.
He himself connects many memories with the former Pope, says Hopfensberger. After all, Benedikt, then still Joseph Ratzinger, lived in Pentling from 1970 to 1977, where he had built a house. According to Hopfensberger, Ratzinger acted as village priest and held masses. He served dozens of times under Ratzinger. Ratzinger inaugurated several fire engines and in 1995 participated in the collection of donations for a new church bell and then also inaugurated it.
Even as Pope Ratzinger maintained a close relationship with Pentling. Hopfensberger is particularly pleased that he had the opportunity to visit the Pope in the Vatican.
Joseph Ratzinger chose Pentling as his place of residence while he was professor of theology at the University of Regensburg. When he became archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 and went to Rome as prefect of the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1982, he kept his home in Pentling and spent his vacations there. In 2010, when he had already been in office for five years, he donated the house to the Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI Foundation.
