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World & Nation

Pope confided in brother about his infirmity

By Henry Chu
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LONDON -- Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to step down may have taken almost everyone by surprise Monday, but one person said he had known such a move was likely: his older brother.

Georg Ratzinger, 89, told the German DPA news agency that Benedict increasingly felt his physical limitations. The pope’s doctor had advised him against any further transatlantic journeys, and walking had become more difficult, Georg Ratzinger said.

PHOTOS: Pope Benedict XVI to step down

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Deciding to retire was a “natural step,” the elder Ratzinger told DPA.

“My brother wants to have more rest in his old age,” he said.

The two men grew up in Bavaria and attended seminary together outside the town of Traunstein.

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Henry Chu

Henry Chu first joined the Los Angeles Times in 1990 and worked primarily out of the San Fernando Valley office before moving to the foreign staff in 1998. He served as bureau chief in Beijing from 1998 to 2003, Rio de Janeiro from 2004 to 2005, New Delhi from 2006 to 2008 and London from 2009 to 2014. He was a 2014-15 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. From 2016-19 he was international editor at Variety magazine. A graduate of Harvard University, Chu returned to The Times in March 2020 as deputy news editor based in London. He left in 2024.

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