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About the Author

While Benedict of Bavaria took two years to write, Brennan Pursell has been preparing for this book all his life.

Brennan Pursell had his first encounter with the Catholic faith as a graduate student at Harvard University. He was studying the history of the Protestant Reformation, and intrigued by what he was reading about the Catholic Church he began attending Mass at St. Paul’s Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1994, during a trip to Germany, he was formally received into the Catholic Church at the Bene¬dictine monastery of Metten. That same summer he met his future spouse, a Bavarian pianist, and the couple married in 1997. In 2001 Brennan joined the faculty of DeSales University, a Catholic liberal arts college in eastern Pennsylvania, where he teaches a wide range of courses on European history. His first book, The Winter King: Frederick V of the Palatinate and the Coming of the Thirty Years War was published in 2003.

Brennan, who is fluent in German, began working on Benedict of Bavaria shortly after the papal conclave of 2005. He immersed himself in the early life of Joseph Ratzinger, visiting all the towns where he lived, the schools where he studied, and the churches where he worshipped. Drawing upon a host of sources that are virtually unknown outside Germany, including interviews and encounters with the people who knew Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict of Bavaria is the first book to demonstrate the authentic influence Bavarian culture had on the development of Pope Benedict’s life and thought.

 Press Release:

THE POPE: AN ORDINARY CHRISTIAN

New Biography Reveals Origins of Benedict XVI’s Attachment to Traditional Christianity

NORTH HAVEN, Conn., April 2, 2008 – Joseph Ratzinger once described himself as “a perfectly ordinary Christian.” As Brennan Pursell, author of Benedict of Bavaria, discovered in his visits to the Pope’s homeland, Joseph Ratzinger and his family were no different than their neighbors. They prayed daily, went to church on Sundays and holy days, and kept up the customs and devotional practices of the Church year. Over time it would become clear, however, that young Joseph was different from the other boys in the village—his was a profound faith illuminated by a truly brilliant mind.

“Faith in Jesus Christ and fidelity to the message of the Gospel lie at the heart of Benedict XVI’s identity. While other great minds have drifted into the realm of speculative theology, Ratzinger drew upon his study of history, philosophy, and theology to make the case that sacred truths do not change, that what the Church has taught from the beginning is still true today,” says Pursell.

Ratzinger could have spent his life as a member of a university faculty, but as Pursell shares with  his readers, Ratzinger felt called to be more than a professor—he was called to be a teacher, a spiritual guide, and a defender of the faith.

For this biography of Pope Benedict, Pursell spent long periods in Germany, consulting local sources, and meeting people who knew Joseph Ratzinger (Pursell is fluent in German, and his wife is from Bavaria). As a result, this biography is free of the distortions, misinformation, and misunderstandings that afflict so much of the English-language coverage of the pope.

Pursell’s portrait reveals a man who is gentle and patient, who never loses his temper, who knows what he believes and why he believes it—and who has dedicated his life to sharing faith with the world. According to Pursell, that is why the Pope’s first encyclical, or teaching document, was entitled, God Is Love. Benedict believes that the love of God draws all people to the truth, and that once we surrender to that love, even the most troubled life has meaning and a purpose. This pope is not “God’s Rottweiler,” or “the Enforcer,” but a Christian pledged to bring God’s love to a weary world.

WHO IS THIS POPE FROM BAVARIA?

Papal Biography Reveals the Heart and Soul of Benedict XVI

NEW HAVEN, CT, April, 2008 – Was Joseph Ratzinger a Nazi? Have Catholic theologians been under attack since “God’s Rottweiler” became pope? Is Pope Benedict’s revision of the Good Friday prayer for the Jews insulting? Why did Benedict XVI bring back the traditional Latin Mass—is he trying to turn back the clock?

These questions and others like them try Brennan Pursell’s patience. As a professor of history he knows that a man’s character cannot be captured in a sound bite. And as frequent visitor to Bavaria (Pursell is fluent in German), it frustrates him that because Pope Benedict lived through the Nazi era there is a suspicion that he harbors Nazi sympathies.

Two years ago Pursell set out to write a biography of Joseph Ratzinger titled Benedict of Bavaria, which would reveal the true nature of the man—how his mind works, what his heart loves, and where his loyalties lie. Unlike other books about Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict, Pursell decided to use predominantly sources in German. In German publications he found the reminiscences of people who knew Joseph Ratzinger long before he left his homeland for a post at the Vatican. He found interviews with Ratzinger that had been published years earlier in German magazines and newspapers, or aired on German TV stations. And he read German books about Ratzinger that are unknown in the United States.

Pursell found that the Pope’s Bavarian heritage, like his Catholic faith, is an inextricable part of who he is. Bavaria is the most Catholic region of Germany, a place where the local culture is steeped in all things Catholic. Joseph Ratzinger absorbed these influences consciously and unconsciously and came to treasure them. He also acquired other Bavarian traits—reverence for tradition and continuity; a style of worship in which the focus is always on God and not on one’s self; a love for beauty; and a steadfastness devotion for one’s homeland.

For a well-rounded portrait of his subject, Pursell also visited every town where Joseph Ratzinger lived, the schools where he studied and taught, and the churches and shrines—particularly the shrine of Our Lady of Altötting&m

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