The odds-makers likely had an easier time 20 years ago, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, long a loyal servant of Pope John Paul II and dean of the college of cardinals, stepped onto the balcony ...

Even before Pope John Paul II's death, few people in the Roman Catholic Church wielded as much power as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 77. His opponents regard him as a Vatican Rasputin, pulling strings, ...

Among the most severe words issued from the Vatican in recent memory were written by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, just a month before he became Pope Benedict XVI. Tucked into the Good Friday ...

First there was white smoke and the bells of St. Peter's. Then "Habemus papam," the announcement by Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez that the conclave of cardinals had named the 265th Pope. With ...

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany addresses the faithful as the new pope in this frame from TV, at the Vatican, Tuesday, April 19 2005. Bells chimed at St. Peter's Basilica Tuesday evening, ...

ROME – As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI had since 1981 been prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s enforcer of doctrinal purity. It ...

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was such a close ally of Pope John Paul II that he could have easily chosen the name John Paul III. But those who expect the 78-year-old Pope Benedict XVI to ...

This piece is the second in a two-part series inspired by the Lausanne Catholic-Evangelical Conversation held at Mundelein Seminary (Illinois) on April 18-20, 2013. The event began with two ...