honorary citizenship of his native town Neuss. The street in Cologne in which the residence of the present Archbishops of Cologne is located was renamed Kardinal-Frings-Straße. Second Vatican Council In advance of the Second Vatican Council, Frings gave a speech in Genoa with the title: "Das Konzil auf dem Hintergrund der Zeitlage im Unterschied zum ersten vatikanischen Konzil" ("The council against the background of the present time in contrast to the First Vatican Council"). When Pope John XXIII later got hold of the text of the speech, he summoned Frings for an audience at the Vatican. Cardinal Frings, who was doubtful as to whether the pope liked his speech, said to his secretary, Dr Hubert Luthe, who would later become the bishop of Essen, in his humorous Kölsch dialect: "Hängen se m'r doch ens dat ruude Mäntelsche üm, wer weiß ob et nit dat letzte Mohl is" ("Please wrap the little red coat around my shoulders again, who knows if it will not be the last time you do it?"). However, the pope appeared enthusiastic when he read Frings' manuscript and gave him a warm welcome. It was recently discovered that the speech had been written by Frings' peritus (theological adviser), Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. Frings participated in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and was a member of the ten-prelate council chair board. In his speech, delivered in fluent Latin, about the rules of procedure in the opening session of the council ("of the first general congregation), he demanded a time of "getting known to each other" of the council fathers before the act of deciding about the compilation of the council commissions and delayed execution of the plans developed by the curia. His speech, predominantly composed by Ratzinger, about the Holy Office, which the prelate perceived as too conservative and authoritarian, had tremendous effects and eventually led to its reorganisation as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Retirement and death In 1963, Frings became philister of honour of the K.St.V. Arminia Bonn in the KV and on 3 May 1967 honorary member of the A.V. Rheinstein, a Catholic student fraternity that is a member of the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen. In 1969, he resigned from the governance of his archdiocese for age reasons. He lost more and more of his eyesight and eventually was completely blind. Frings died in 1978 from a heart