Pope Benedict XVI: profile of 'God’s Rottweiler'

A theologian who devoted much of his papacy to writing encyclicals and a three-volume book on the life of Christ, he was an unlikely candidate for the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.

He was born Joseph Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in the predominantly Catholic region of Bavaria.

He was the son of a policeman but gravitated towards the priesthood, entering a seminary in 1939.

During the war, like many young Germans, he was drafted into the Hitler Youth movement and served on anti-aircraft batteries, albeit unwillingly.

In a 1996 book written by a German journalist, he said he had been forced to join the Nazi youth corps.

“At first we weren’t, but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later, as a seminarian, I was enrolled in the Hitler Youth. Once I left the seminary I never went there again.”

In November 1944, he underwent basic training with the German infantry.

As the Allies drew nearer, he deserted and returned to the southern town of Traunstein where he had been studying.

He was identified as a German soldier and briefly held in a prisoner of war camp, but was released in June 1945, a month after Germany had surrendered.

He was ordained a priest at the same time as his older brother Georg in 1951, and began teaching theology at Freising College in 1958.

Ratzinger went on from there to teach at several other German universities, notably in Bonn, Munster and Regensburg.

Pope Paul VI named him archbishop of Munich in 1977 and made him a cardinal the same year.

It was during the 1978 conclave of cardinals to elect a successor to Paul VI that Ratzinger got to know Karol Wojtyla, the future John Paul II.

Three years later he agreed to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful Vatican department responsible for enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy, and the successor to the Inquisition.

As prefect or head of the department he earned the nicknames “God’s Rottweiler” and “the Panzer Cardinal”, a nod to his German heritage and conservative views on issues such as ordaining women, marriage for priests and the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

He called rock music “the expression of basic passions” and described homosexuality as a “more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil”.

After more than 20 years as head of the CDF, he was elected pope in April 2005 after the death of John Paul II, the much-loved Polish pontiff.

He was 78 and privately expressed fears about the burden that the office would impose — misgivings which finally came home to roost on Monday.

An accomplished pianist with a deep admiration for Mozart and Bach, Benedict is also a cat lover and is said to have adopted strays roaming the streets of Rome.

Having served as Pope for eight years and taken the all-but unprecedented decision to resign, he will now have plenty of time for two of his favoured pursuits - prayer and writing.

“With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer,” he said in his resignation statement.