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 ...

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 ...

Many Roman Catholics in the United States expected Pope Benedict XVI would immediately begin to enforce a rigid orthodoxy after ascending to the papacy in June. But observers see a difference between ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

"Ratzinger will put the brakes on all the progressive movements in the church that I support." But Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany said Ratzinger's communication skills were a factor in his ...