Later Life
Msgr. Ratzinger retired from his position as director of the choir in 1994 and has been a canon in Regensburg since 25 January 2009.
In 2005, during a visit to his brother in Rome, symptoms of heart failure and arrhythmia led to a brief admission at the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic. Georg Ratzinger is almost blind.
There has been speculation that in a future consistory held by Benedict XVI, he could be made a non-voting Cardinal for his services to Catholic music and liturgy, but the ancient practice of conferring cardinalates on notable papal relatives has not been observed for some time- though it has happened and the Pope is free to do so as supreme ruler of the earthly Church (being unbound by traditional regulations against doing so in secular positions). It would not be totally unprecedented due to Monsignor Ratzinger's prestigious contributions to church music. In the last forty years or so under Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, the cardinalate has been conferred on one or two priests or deserving prelates during a consistory, generally those above the voting age of 80 and who were not archbishops in line for elevation (and sometimes secretly, in pectore), for their services to the Church.
On 29 June 2011 Msgr Ratzinger celebrated sixty years as a priest and gave an interview on the topic. During which he noted that during the ordination "My brother was the second to youngest, though there were some who were older." He also noted that "I have the stole and the cassock from that day".
Read more about this topic: Georg Ratzinger
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“After us they’ll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, “Oh! Life is so hard!” and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)