Pope meets delegation from Aschau am Inn, recalls childhood memories

Published: 2006-10-04

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI relived some of his most precious childhood memories, such as his first Communion, bike rides with his mother, and helping neighbors herd cows, when a delegation from Aschau am Inn, Germany, made the pope an honorary citizen. The pope held a private audience Oct. 4 in a meeting room inside the Vatican's Paul VI hall with a delegation of nearly 40 residents of the small Bavarian town east of Munich, where the pontiff spent his elementary school years. The Ratzinger family moved to Aschau am Inn in 1932, when the pope was 5 years old, and stayed there until the pope's father retired in 1937. Pope Benedict told the delegation, which included the town's mayor and some of the pope's former classmates and friends, that he was greatly honored to receive the special recognition from a town he still considers home.

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