Private Secretary of Pope Benedict speaks about his work

Bishop Clemens on Joseph Ratzinger: Modest and called by God

Bishop Josef Clemens was the private secretary of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, for 23 years. The longest-serving German in the Vatican reported on Friday evening at a book launch on Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI on his very personal impressions of the Bavarian pope, who died at the end of 2022.

"We heard each other every week even after my secretaryship, so I know him well. As to personality, I would say he found himself called as someone who has to pass on Catholic teaching. That is his life project. It was an inherited project given to him from above. And there, of course, he found his fulfilment. The good Lord also gave him the gifts. I would say that one of his great gifts is his memory. A good scientist, I believe, in all faculties, needs a good memory. And he had that. Sometimes also to my chagrin. Even with jokes: He would say: , We are listening to the 23rd elaborated version` etc. And when you feel this vocation so strongly within yourself and also have the gifts for it....

"Vocation to preach, to do theology, then the gifts to be able to do that - the good Lord gave him those too."

The other great gift is of course the power of formulation, also the power of synthesis, to bring something to the point. He tried to pass on the faith from the start, so to speak, with the gifts he had: the vocation to preach, to theology, then the gifts to be able to do that - the good Lord also gave them to him. He also had the insight: I cannot speak about something that I do not do myself, or better still, that I do not make an effort to do myself. Something I am also struggling for, so to speak. I also have to take the time to live the faith with the people I'm given."

"I can't talk about something I don't do myself"

No special treatment

However, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and later Pope Benedict XVI are remembered by Bishop Clemens not only as a clever, humorous theologian who lived his vocation and faith, but also as a very humble person: 

"He would not have been in favour of exceptions. We flew economy and queued up, each with his little suitcase in Fiumicino. And when it was our turn, it was our turn. It would have been alien to him to demand any rights or privileges or anything else.

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