Georg Ratzinger - Later Life

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".