Street music and free beer as town of Pope’s birth celebrates

A TRADITIONAL German tuba band blared and free beer were on tap last night in the main square in the southern German town where Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, was born.

Soon after Ratzinger’s election, people in the tiny Bavarian town of Marktl am Inn began gathering in the square, in the shadow of the house that was once the new Pope’s home.

Although Ratzinger’s family moved away from the town when he was two and the new Pope has said he has no memory of the place, the house has a plaque in his honour, and the font where he was baptised is displayed in a museum. “We are totally happy,” said Mayor Hubert Gschwendtner, who hopes having a Pope from Marktl will mean more investment in the town.