Georg Ratzinger written by Maria Elena Bergoglio to Ratzinger. Georg Ratzinger Georg Ratzinger PA (born 15 January 1924) is a German Catholic priest and musician, known for his work as the conductor of the Regensburger Domspatzen, the cathedral choir of Regensburg, Germany. He is the elder brother of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger). His great-uncle was the German politician Georg Ratzinger. Ratzinger was born in Pleiskirchen, Bavaria to Joseph Ratzinger, a police officer, and Maria Ratzinger, née Peintner. He has a younger brother, Joseph, who later reigned as Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 to 2013, and a sister, Maria. Early in
Joseph Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church, along with José Manuel Estepa Llaurens, William Joseph Levada and Estanislao Esteban Karlic with Christoph Schönborn, O.P. serving as the secretary of the group. Many saw in a contrasting light Ratzinger's planning and overseeing of the opening of the long-sealed Inquisition archives, making available at the beginning of 1998 all materials up to the 1903 death of Pope Leo XIII. However, the lag behind availability of other Vatican archives (at that point open up to the 1922 death of Pope Benedict XV and, since Ratzinger became Pope himself, up to the 1939 death of Pope Pius