“Joseph’s mother did a lot for him. She was my sponsor when I was confirmed. She was very talented and a hard worker. She made Joseph teddy bears and animals and rabbits, whatever you can think. She made them by hand.
“I was at Joseph’s ordination (on 29 June, 1951) and he said ‘Erika, I haven’t seen you for 14 years’. I would never have known how long it had been. Later he said to me ‘Erika, I’ve still got my animals’.
Awwww. Stuffed animals. Some other excerpts:
Pope Benedict XVI’s cousin Erika Kopp, who lives in Blackburn South and migrated to Australia from Germany with her husband Karl in 1955, recalls visiting a shop with her then six-year-old cousin Joseph and her aunt.
“The shopkeeper was an elderly woman and she asked Joseph,‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ Mrs Kopp said.“
He replied: ‘I am going to be a Bishop’.”
Mrs Kopp, 79, was not surprised. “That was Joseph’s upbringing,” she said. “There was lots of prayer. His father was a high-ranking policeman and before he went on patrol he would always make the sign of the cross.”
...
A bright and active woman, Mrs Kopp is delighted that her cousin has been chosen to lead the world’s Catholics, and has full confidence in him.
“I think he is the best person,” Mrs Kopp said. “His mental capacity is still as good as if he were younger.
“I feel very excited and proud. Joseph is such a good man, a simple man, very quiet. He is also such a controlled man, very exact, always on time. I don’t think he can help himself. His father was like that.
“Joseph has studied all his life and this is the highest thing you can achieve. He was always so clever, such a strong thinker. That is a gift from God. Even as a little boy everyone realised, Joseph is the wunderkind.
“When we were children I said to Auntie (Joseph’s mother Maria), ‘I wish I could be as clever as Joseph’, and she always said ‘Erika, when you finish school, you will be able to count your money’.
“Joseph wasn’t a sportsperson,” she said. “They had all the music you could imagine and a big piano which Joseph and Maria played a lot. I rode Maria’s bicycle. Uncle spent all his money on their education and Joseph attended a very exclusive school ...
Read the entire article here.
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