Pope Benedict XVI will visit Freising, too

Cardinal Wetter announces the Holy Father's wish
Ordination of priests in Freising “unforgettable as a great moment in life”

München/Freising, March 14, 2006 (ok) At the express desire of Pope Benedict XVI and at the recommendation of the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, the Pope will also visit the old city of bishops Freising on his visit in September to his native Bavarian. This was announced by Cardinal Wetter on Tuesday, March 14, at a press conference with the organizer of papal journeys Alberto Gasbarri in Munich. Gasbarri is currently in Bavaria in order to discuss the contents, organization and technical side of preparations for the Pope's itinerary from September 9 – 14 with those in charge of the relevant Bavarian dioceses.

After Munich, Altötting and Regensburg, Freising has now been officially named as one of the stops in the Pope's visit. Joseph Ratzinger studied philosophy and theology in Freising and Munich from 1946 to 1951. Together with his brother Georg and over 40 other candidates, he was ordained to the priesthood on June 29, 1951, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, in St. Mary's Cathedral (Mariendom) in Freising by Cardinal Michael Faulhaber. According to Benedict XVI's memoirs, it was a beautiful summer day, "which will remain unforgettable as a great moment in life". He wrote: "At the very moment in which the old Archbishop placed his hands on me, a little bird – perhaps a lark – rose from the high altar in the cathedral and warbled a little song of cheer. It seemed to me like words of encouragement from above: All is well, you are on the right path.“

From 1952 to 1954 Ratzinger taught at the archdiocesan clerical seminary in Freising from 1954 to 1957 at the Freising University of Philosophy and Theology as professor of dogmatic and fundamental theology at the University of Philosophy and Theology in Freising and lived for some time with his parents on Cathedral Mountain in Freising. Students helped him move. "One didn't enter a vacuum but instead a community marked by friendship and mutual care," he wrote in his recollections of this period in his life.

The old bishops' city was also the center of his activities as Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982. In these years he ordained altogether 30 deacons to the priesthood in the Freising Cathedral. At the annual celebration of the Feat of St. Corbinian, who proclaimed the Christian faith in the 8th century in the area of Freising and is venerated as the patron of the diocese, Masses are held with thousands of young people and believers from the entire archdiocese and hundreds of children are blessed. On February 13, 1982 he bid farewell to the deacons and priests of the Archdiocese in the Freising cathedral on his way to the new office as Prefect of the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In this farewell mass, he told them: "Let us stay together! Let us hold to each other! . . . Let us love Jesus Christ, let us approach him again and again!!“

At St. Corbinian's shrine in the crypt of the Freising cathedral, he asked the patron of the diocese to intercede for new priests and all those in the orders. As a farewell gift, Adolf Schäfer, Chief Mayor of Freising at that time, gave him a carved Corbinian's bear as an official symbol of the bond with Freising and at the same time as an indication of the burden of the new office at the side of Pope John Paul II. Benedict XVI incorporated the traditional Freising Moor from the coat of the arms of the old principality and St. Corbinian's bear as a sign of the special bond with his native diocese in his papal coat of arms. (wr)

Caption: The photo shows the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, entering the cathedral in Freising on February 13, 1982 for the farewell mass with the priests and deacons of the archdiocese. (Photo: Lehmann)