In a startling revelation, a German newspaper has stated that the parents of Pope Benedict XVI had met through a lonely-hearts advertisement that appeared in a Catholic newspaper. The facts came to the fore while the newspaper was exploring Joseph Ratzinger’s Bavarian roots. According to the reports the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Joseph Ratzinger senior had placed an advertisement twice in the year 1920 in his quest to find a Catholic woman as life partner.
The advertisement of Ratzinger senior said,
Junior public servant, single, Catholic, aged 43, with pension rights, seeks marriage as soon as possible with good Catholic girl who can cook and sew a little and has a dowry and some property.
Maria Peintner, who eventually became his wife later on, responded to the ad when it was published second time in Catholic weekly newspaper Altoettinger Liebfrauenbote.
They finally married in 1920 and had three children, Maria, now dead, Georg, who is a retired priest, and Joseph junior, now pope.
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