She was an 11-year-old girl

He was a newly ordained priest on his first assignment. Over the years, they would stay in touch, through letters and personal visits.

Half a century later, she is known as Sister Emmanuel, a Discalced Carmelite in a monastery outside Seattle.

He is known as Pope Benedict XVI.

"He'll be great," she told Seattle's archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Northwest Progress, during an interview at her monastery.

"We need a pope to lead us to Christ," she also said. "He is rock-solid and we really need that."

Sister Emmanuel, is from Greinau bi Garmisch: a German village at the foot of the Alps. Newly ordained priests were regularly sent there for their first assignment, including then-Father Ratzinger and his brother Georg.

(The above material is related by Catholic News Service. The Daily Herald also has an article - with a picture of Sister Emmanuel with then-Cardinal Ratzinger).