A photograph said to show a young Pope Benedict XVI has unexpectedly sent queer social media into meltdown, with reactions ranging from “Vatican heartthrob” to the considerably less flattering “evil twink”.
The black-and-white image of a youthful Joseph Ratzinger began circulating widely on X this week, prompting thousands of people to discover that the future conservative pontiff apparently had quite the face card.
And, naturally, the gays had thoughts.
“Imagine wasting your life dedicated to religion looking like this,” one person joked.
“Give up sex with that facecard? The mindset he had, holy smokes,” wrote another.
Others took a darker approach.
“I can recognise an evil twink when I see one,” one user declared, while perhaps the most inevitable contribution was simply:
“Benedictwink.”
Is The Viral Pope Benedict Photo Real?
As the image spread, some social media users questioned whether the surprisingly model-esque young Ratzinger had been generated or enhanced using AI.
Versions of the black-and-white image appear to have circulated online well before the current AI image boom, although the exact provenance of the viral version is difficult to independently establish.
There are, however, numerous authenticated photographs of Ratzinger from the same period.
He was ordained as a priest in 1951 at the age of 24, and historical archives contain photographs of him as a young chaplain and celebrating Mass in Germany during the early 1950s.
So while social media may have given the image a fresh coat of viral attention — and potentially some modern digital enhancement along the way — young Joseph Ratzinger was very much a real person with, apparently, unexpected internet thirst-trap potential.
Unfortunately for those currently admiring the cheekbones, his later record on LGBTQ+ rights makes the story considerably less cute.
From ‘Benedictwink’ To Vatican Doctrinal Enforcer
Decades before becoming Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, Ratzinger became one of the Catholic Church’s most powerful conservative theologians.
From 1981 until his election as pope, he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican body responsible for enforcing Catholic teaching.
During his tenure, the Congregation issued its influential 1986 Letter To The Bishops Of The Catholic Church On The Pastoral Care Of Homosexual Persons.
The document stated that while homosexual orientation was not itself a sin, it should be regarded as an “objective disorder”.
It also described same-sex sexual activity as morally unacceptable under Catholic teaching.
Those words had significant consequences for generations of LGBTQ+ Catholics and helped shape the Church’s institutional approach to homosexuality for decades.
Benedict Also Approved Restrictions On Gay Seminarians
Soon after becoming pope, Benedict approved a 2005 Vatican instruction addressing gay men entering seminaries and the priesthood.
The document said the Church could not admit men who “practise homosexuality”, have “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” or support what it described as “gay culture”.
It did allow for candidates whose same-sex attraction was considered temporary and had been overcome for at least three years.
LGBTQ+ Catholics and advocates widely criticised the policy for reinforcing stigma against gay men within the Church.
Benedict also strongly opposed legal recognition of same-sex relationships during his time at the Vatican, including same-sex marriage.
So while the internet may currently be appreciating young Ratzinger’s looks, his eventual relationship with LGBTQ+ equality was anything but a love story.
And Yes, There Is The Hitler Youth History
The viral conversation has also revived discussion of another complicated chapter from Benedict’s youth.
Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth as a teenager in Nazi Germany.
Context matters here: membership became compulsory for German boys of his age, and historical accounts describe Ratzinger’s family as strongly opposed to Nazism. His father was an anti-Nazi Catholic who reportedly clashed with the regime.
Ratzinger was later drafted into a German anti-aircraft unit during the Second World War and subsequently into the army.
Near the end of the war in 1945, he deserted his unit and returned home — an act that could have carried a death sentence if he had been caught by Nazi forces.
He was later captured by American troops and held briefly as a prisoner of war before being released.
So the history is considerably more complicated than simply saying the future pope willingly joined the Nazi movement.
The Gay Internet Remains Undefeated
None of that complexity has stopped social media from doing what social media does best: discovering an unexpected vintage photograph and immediately turning it into queer meme material.
There is something undeniably absurd about one of the Catholic Church’s most prominent conservative figures becoming an accidental gay internet thirst trap more than a decade after leaving the papacy.
Benedict died in 2022 at the age of 95, almost a decade after becoming the first pope in centuries to resign voluntarily.
His legacy remains complicated — particularly for LGBTQ+ Catholics who lived under teachings and policies he helped shape and defend.
Which makes the sudden transformation of young Joseph Ratzinger into “Benedictwink” all the more surreal.
The internet may be admiring the face.
It certainly has not forgotten the record.
