At 78, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was one of the oldest new popes in history when elected.
There is also a guest room available for when his older brother, Georg Ratzinger, visits.
Scola met Ratzinger when Scola wrote for Communion magazine, a publication cofounded by Ratzinger.
In 1981, Pope John Paul II called Cardinal Ratzinger to Rome to apply the brakes.
When the war ended, young Ratzinger returned home to Bavaria and swiftly entered a Catholic seminary.
Instead they purposely, for geopolitical purposes, chose the Austrian and the personal friend of the Bavarian Ratzinger.
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Georg Ratzinger confirmed that his brother has no intention of returning to live in his native Bavaria.
Ratzinger, himself 89, did not specify when his brother began to feel too frail to carry on.
He was reported to be the chief rival to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was duly elected and became Pope Benedict XVI.
Georg Ratzinger, told CNN in Regensburg, Germany, that Benedict had come to his decision without seeking his brother's advice.
Ratzinger said he expected to see a pope chosen from outside Europe one day -- but not just yet.
He was the pope's right-hand man when the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed the department that enforces doctrinal orthodoxy.
He will also continue to be known by his papal title of Benedict XVI, rather than reverting to Joseph Ratzinger.
The pontiff, born Joseph Ratzinger, will first go by helicopter to the pope's summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Lombardi said.
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Ratzinger never answered the letter, according to the Times, and church officials have said he had no knowledge of the situation.
These qualities made him a strong contender for the papacy in 2005, when he was reportedly the chief rival to Joseph Ratzinger.
Benedict, founder of the Benedictine order of monks, who helped spread Christianity throughout Europe and was particularly venerated in Ratzinger's homeland, Germany.
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And as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he had said Turkey shouldn't be allowed into the European Union because it's not a Christian nation.
The former Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, reportedly got the second-most votes after Joseph Ratzinger, the last pope, in the 2005 papal election.
Prof Ratzinger, as a German who had grown up in the 1930s, understood all too well what a totalitarian regime could do.
Joseph Fessio, a theology student of Ratzinger's at the University of Regensburg from 1972-74, and now the English-language publisher of his books.
It was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, his boss, who under the Vatican's arcane rules had technically lost his job when John Paul died.
And the pope did not repudiate a document signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, insisting that the Catholic church is superior to all others.
The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope after John Paul II's death.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, Ratzinger shot up the church's ranks.
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The bad news for those holding smoke-watch vigil was that it took firm favourite Joseph Ratzinger four votes to get elected in 2005.
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Speaking to the BBC from his home in Regensburg in Germany, Georg Ratzinger said his brother's resignation was part of a "natural process".
Unlike Ratzinger, who was terribly shy in public, Scola is said to be gregarious and to especially enjoy communing with young people.
The German pontiff, who was born Joseph Ratzinger, will continue to be known as Benedict XVI, with the new title of "pope emeritus".
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