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One of the older men said they looked after the Pope and cooked for him in his apartment. They seemed surprised and some of the guys said they thought only nuns did that. One of them declared "that one has hot legs."

Should the skirt be a little longer and the shoes a little less flirty?

The Tirolese Roots of Joseph Ratzinger
by Josef Gelmi

The election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the Papal threshold on 19 April 2005 was reason for great rejoicing in the Alto Adige, and in particular for the Major Seminary of Bressanone, the new Pope being very close to the institution and to the land in which it is located. Ratzinger was born in Marktl-am-Inn, in the Diocese of Passavia, the third child of police commissioner Joseph Ratzinger and his wife Maria Peintner.

[Ratzinger's] mother was born on 8 Jnauary 1884 in Muhlbach, Bavaria, a gracious village located in the Comune of Kiefersfelden and belonging to the Parish of Oberaudorf, in the district of Rosenheim. As was the custom in those times, Maria Peintner was baptized on the same day she was born, by the parish priest Disman Nigg at Oberaudorf. Her godmother was Magdalena Gabenstatter.

Pope Benedict XVI's mother was raised in Rimsting, in the district of Rosenheim, where she lived for thirty years until, on 9 November 1920, she married police commissioner Joseph Ratzinger and moved with him to Pleiskirchen. She died on 16 December 1963 in Traunstein.

In a talk with Peter Seewald, the same Ratzinger, who was still a Cardinal, said one day: "My mother had Tirolese roots." Georg Ratzinger, brother of Joseph Ratzinger, says of their mother: "She was the oldest of eight children and her childhood was one of hardship. Her day began in the heart of night. Aside from working in the bakery of her parents delivering bread and 'brezn', she also had to take care of her many brothers and sisters. So as not to put further strain on the family's finances, she was soon pressed into service. Our mother was a cook, a woman of good heart, of good disposition and good-looking. She knew how to make the most of things, she was very practical and had a lot of imagination, and in her hands truly extraordinary things would take shape out of nothing. The cooking profession demanded it of my mother, whose motto was: 'Every woman should know how to cook.

"Our mother was in the service of a Czech violinist in Salzburg, and in the house of General Zech in Wiesbaden. Subsequently, she went to Munich, to the Hotel Wittelsbach, where she looked after the preparation of sweets (desserts?). Much later, she worked for two seasons as a cook in Reit-im-Winkl, for the pension Gluck-im-Winkl.

"She wanted to contribute to the upkeep of the family because our father's pension was very modest and we children needed money to be able to study. For a time, she was also at Kufstein. I had the chance to know the lady with whom she worked. She used to say to my mother: 'Remember, my girl, that the Tyrol walks with the angels.' (Translator's Note: this is a literal translation, for which I apologize - I am sure the real translation is far more evocative and poetic.) These words appealed to my mother, who had roots in the Southern Tyrol.'

Her mother, that is the grandmother of Pope Benedict XVI, was called Maria Tauber-Peintner. She was born on 29 June 1855 in Rasa, near Bressanone, the daughter of Anton Peter Peintner of Aica and Elisabeth Maria Tauber of Rasa, who were married on 9 February 1858 in the Church of Sta. Elena in Rio di Pusteria. Maria Tauber-Peintner left her own homeland to settle in Muhlbach, in the Comune of Kiefersfelden.

On 23 June 1885, Maria Tauber-Peintner and Isidor Reiger, a baker from Welden, Bavaria, passed the pre-nuptial test of parish priest Joseph Sailer in Rio di Pusteria. In the [parish] records, it reads: "The bride is well-informed in religion." On 13 July 1885, the wedding was celebrated at Absam, neard Innsbruck. The couple then moved to Rimsting, where they opened a bakery. The [Ratzingers'] grandmother had the joy of seeing all eight of her children well-settled.

Georg Ratzinger describes her thus: "She was a rather sturdy woman, a strong person, and the corners of her mouth were curved downward in a rather stern frown. She was known to be very brusque."

Ida Langer, a niece of the Pope's mother, says of her: "My grandmother spent her entire youth in Rio di Pusteria. The last ten years before her death, which happened in 1930, she lived in the house of my parents. We took care of her and we liked her very much. She often told us children marvelous stories of the Val Pusteria, and of how a mill on the Isarco was swept away on the water one day, reducing her parents to misery.

"My grandparents then bought a bakery in Rimsting in 1890. It was a small place, they started with little, but they succeeded in expanding by working with great diligence. Their eight children, my mother included, carried the bread in conical wicker baskets down to Harras (now a Hamlet of Prien), and then went back on foot, until they were the Ratzingers' age (Translator's note: the literal translation of the phrase fino all'altura dei Ratzinger' is 'until they were the height of the Ratzingers', which I hope means 'until they were the Ratzingers' age.) They left at 5 in the morning, and delivered two rosettes here, three here ..."

The mill on the Isarco was most probably a mill on the Valles River.

The Pope's grandmother died on 17 June 1930, at the age of 75. Georg Ratzinger recalls: "At our grandmother's funeral in Rimstring, our parents were also present, with us three children."