Watch the special on-demand webcast of 'Pope Benedict XVI: The Rise of Josef Ratzinger' (Part One, Part Two). This programme, produced by Mint Productions for RTÉ, was originally broadcast on 3 January, 2006.
This week marks two years since the death of Pope John Paul II.
The 84-year-old, who had been ill for many years, died from complications of Parkinson's Disease in the Papal Apartment in 2005.
He was the third-longest serving Pope in the Church's 2,000-year history.
In May 2005, less than a month after Pope Benedict XVl was elected, he ordered an investigation into his immediate predecessor’s saintliness, waiving the 5-year waiting period designed to protect the canonization process from heightened emotions.
In January 2007, the Vatican official responsible for the Causes of Saints said that April this year should see the completion of investigations into 'miracles' attributed to the late Pope's intercession.
The Polish Pope's canonisation hinges on a successful outcome to two such inquiries.
SISTER MARIE-SIMON-PIERRE
The French nun who credits the late Pope John Paul II with her sudden recovery from Parkinson's disease has said it is up to the Catholic Church to decide if it was a miracle.
46-year-old Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre told journalists in Aix-en-Provence she had suffered for four years and was about to quit work as a maternity ward supervisor when she suddenly found her hand was calm enough to write clearly again.
Medical specialists have found no scientific explanation for the healing which took place two months after Pope John Paul's death and after the nun and her community prayed to him for a cure.
According to Reuters News Agency, her recovery could be central to a drive to beatify John Paul, putting him one step away from sainthood.
The Catholic Church demands proof of a medically-unexplained healing to give that honour and a second such case to declare him a saint.
The nun's Archbishop Claude Feidt said he would hand over a thick volume of documents on the case to the Vatican on Monday, the second anniversary of John Paul's death.
Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre is due to accompany him.
SPECIAL ON-DEMAND WEBCAST: POPE BENEDICT XVI
In commemoration, RTÉ.ie presents a special on-demand webcast of 'Pope Benedict XVI: The Rise of Josef Ratzinger', originally broadcast on RTÉ in January 2006.
RTE’s Religious Affairs Correspondent Joe Little asks some of Pope Benedict XVI's confidantes to untangle some of his character’s complexities.
His brother Fr Georg recalls Hitler's impact on their upbringing and a former student, Maynooth-based Fr Vincent Twomey, explains how the terror of the Third Reich focussed his attention on the problems of relativism, the theory that maintains that all belief systems are of equal value.
Fr Hans Kung recalls bringing the reforming Ratzinger to Tubingen after the Second Vatican Council, and recalls how his recruit recoiled at the 1968 student revolt.
Irish theologian Fr Jim Corkery explains St Augustine's seminal influence on the future Pope, underlining their similar experiences of collapsing civilizations in Roman times and the Nazi era.
Seasoned observers like Sr Rita Burley trace the evolution of Cardinal Ratzinger's public persona from disciplinarian to consoler of the faithful after John Paul II's death.
Vatican-watchers John Allen and Gerard O'Connell assess his attack on relativism at the opening of the conclave.
Dublin's Archbishop Diarmuid Martin pinpoints the recent clampdown on clerical sexual abuse spearheaded by Ratzinger when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
And we hear from lay Irish Catholics anxious to see more convincing evidence of a new broom in the Vatican.
Benedict's first Synod of Bishops in the autumn of 2005 indicates to many that he's challenging individual bishops to speak more daringly, but Hans Kung says the Pope must also support bishops who have uncomfortable messages.
We hear why Benedict is still open to allowing some divorced and remarried believers to receive Holy Communion, but Nigeria's leading Archbishop John Onaiyekan explains why the new Pope will continue to reject homosexual acts and the ordination of women.
