Benedict
XVI's elder brother Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, who until 1994 was director
of the famous cathedral choir of Regensburg, has completed a book
entitled "Mein Bruder, der Papst" (My Brother the Pope), written in
collaboration with the German journalist Michael Hesemann.
The
256-page volume, illustrated with forty photographs, contains the
memories of the Holy Father's brother, as recounted to Hesemann in
Regensburg earlier this year.
It has been published by the German
publishing house Herbig and will go on sale in bookshops on 12
September, the eve of Benedict XVI's visit to Germany.
The
culminating moment of the narrative is the sixtieth anniversary of the
priestly ordination of Georg and Joseph Ratzinger.
The two brothers were
ordained in Freising on 29 June 1951 and this year celebrated their
anniversary together in St. Peter's Basilica.
The memories of Msgr.
Ratzinger, the Holy Father's closest relative, go back to the brothers'
childhood as he narrates, among other things, the flowering of Joseph's
priestly vocation in the bosom of the family and his subsequent years of
service to the Church before being elected to the Papacy.