POPE'S MUM AND DAD MET THROUGH A LONELY HEARTS AD

By Allan Hall, Glasgow Daily Record

THE secret behind the marriage of the Pope's parents can be revealed on the day he returns to the village where he was born.
The father of Pope Benedict XVI met his mother after placing a lonely hearts advert, archives have revealed.
And the policeman wanted a good Catholic girl - preferably with money.
The Pope never knew how his parents met. His dad Joseph Ratzinger died in 1959 and his mum - born Maria Peintner - passed on four years later without telling him the secret.
Benedict, who is on a trip to his German homeland that takes in a visit to his birthplace in Marktl am Inn, was said to be "touched" by the discovery.
His dad's ad read: "Middle ranking civil servant, single, Catholic, 43 years old, immaculate past, from the countryside, is seeking a good Catholic pure girl, who can cook well, and who can do all housework, who is also capable of sewing and a good homemaker in order to marry at the soonest opportunity."
"Personal fortune would be desirable but is not a precondition. Offers, if possible with picture, to box No734."

The ad was placed in the March 7, 1920, edition of the Aotoettinger Liebfrauen Messenger newspaper, a Catholic publication seeking to bring together lonely hearts.
It brought Joseph no results so on July 11 the same year, after he had been promoted a rank, he advertised again and got a reply from Maria Peintner.
They met at a coffee house in Regensburg and became engaged days later.
They married on November 9 that year in a parish church near the city and had three children - Georg, now 82 and a priest in Regensburg, Joseph, 79 and now Pope, and Maria, who died in 1991.
Benedict said his parents' meeting reminded him of the words of religious expert Albert Schweitzer.
Schweitzer said: "Coincidence is the pseudonym that dear God chooses when he wants to remain incognito."
Benedict received a copy of his father's small ad after it was found by Peter Becker, former editor of the weekly Catholic newspaper.
Meanwhile, the Pope's first home was targeted by vandals yesterday. They threw paint-filled balloons at the house but no serious damage was done.
Benedict was born there on April 16, 1927, and spent the first two years of his life there.
It then became a police station but was renovated and turned into a private home in recent years.
The Catholic Church bought the building after Ratzinger was elevated to Pope because tourists were making its owner's life a misery.