When in 1944 an SS officer asked him point-blank what he wanted to be "when he grew up," the young "volunteer" in the forced-labor camp answered: "A parish priest in a village. Everyone present laughed at him, but this gesture of Joseph Ratzinger's prevented others from joining the SS and the other seminarians remained steadfast in their vocation. Seven years later, on June 29, 1951, Joseph Ratzinger was ordained a priest together with his brother Georg in the cathedral of Freising in Upper Bavaria.

Sixty-five years have passed since his ordination. Feeling weak, he received security. It was a symbol of the power of the Spirit that every priest receives at his ordination: "When I said 'yes' at priestly ordination," he recalled as pope, "it is possible that one had his own idea about the future, but one also knows: 'I have placed myself in the hands of the bishop and, ultimately, written request of the Lord. I cannot seek for myself what I want. In the end I have to let myself go.

At the press conference celebrated upon his return from his trip to Armenia on June 27, Pope Francis said of him: "He is for me the Pope Emeritus, the wise grandfather, the man who watches my back with his prayer. I do not forget that speech that he offered us cardinals, on February 28 [2013]: 'Among you there is surely my successor. I promise obedience" and he has done so. [...] He is a man of his word, an upright, upright, upright man."

Joseph Ratzinger has been, in addition, Full Professor of Theology for 25 years; Archbishop of Munich and Freising, five; Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith collaborating with St. John Paul II, 23; Bishop of Rome and Pontiff, eight. But, above all, he has been a priest during all this time. We accompany him with gratitude and prayer.