It belongs, I think, on a thread like this one,
which references the pontiff now known as
Benedict XVI.

Few if any of us could have predicted that Benedict XVI
would do what has not been done in four hundred years,
and resign as Pope, permitting the Vatican to name a successor
while he continues his old age in greater privacy than before.

Benedict XVI is in the headlines now, for unfortunate reasons.
While looking at coverage about him,
I was reminded of his brother, who was older,
and who recently pre-deceased him (well, two years or so ago).


I remember when Benedict XVI became the Pope, and his brother
accepted requests for interviews and opinions,
and was as gloomy as he was forthright.
After all, Georg Ratzinger wished for good health and a happy life
for his younger brother,
and he was rather sorrowfully resigned to the probability
that as Pope his brother could not have either one of those things.
Ratzinger said something to the effect that
he himself would find it hard to bear,
to watch his brother becoming ill and frail before his time.

Against all odds, Pope Benedict XVI gave up the papacy and retreated.
And against all odds, it was his brother Georg who died first.
I submit a link to the Jesuit magazine America and
the article memorializing Georg Ratzinger 1924 - 2020