It has not been a week since Benedict XVI. was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica, but his secretary is already at the center of the Vatican controversy. Georg Gänswein, the man who has been responsible for protecting Joseph Ratzinger’s secrets and privacy for the past 20 years, is publishing a book on Thursday in which he settles scores with those who have been close to the pope emeritus in recent years. Also with Pope Francis, with whom he makes no secret that he had a bad relationship and with whom he was disappointed when he resigned from office.
The Pope, perhaps enough of all the noise Gänswein is making these days, met with him on Monday. It was shortly after sending him a subtle but clear warning at last Sunday’s Angelus. “The big gossip is the devil who always badmouths others because he’s the liar trying to divide the church and alienate the brethren and not create fellowship.”
Francis and Gänswein, the German archbishop, never agreed. But the publication of the book that Benedict XVI’s secretary had been in print for two decades before the death of his spiritual father would have made matters worse. “I ask you to try not to gossip. Gossip is a plague, uglier than Covid, worse. Let’s try, no gossip, nothing,” Francisco insisted on Sunday.
But it was too late, because Gänswein’s book Nient’altro che la verità. La mia vita al fianco di Benedetto XVI (Nothing but the truth. My life with Benedict XVI), to which EL PAÍS had access, also refers to Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the deep differences that existed between the two popes, also theologically. “The differences in approach and nuances of theological judgment with which both popes have faced the problems during their pontificate are plain for all to see. But Benedict never interpreted or evaluated Francisco’s strategy,” he points out in the book.
In a work that references a bestseller, the conservative-minded Gänswein also laments the partisan use of the two popes by the traditionalist and progressive factions of the church. In his opinion, the problem was not so much the existence of two popes as “the birth and development of two groups of followers, since time has shown that there are two visions of the Church. And these two groups have created a tension that has been repeated by those who were unaware of the ecclesial dynamic”.
“Sarah’s Botch”
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One of the worst moments of living together was when Cardinal Robert Sarah, a staunch opponent of Francis, wrote a four-handed book with Benedict XVI. announced, in which he questioned one of the main debates – forced celibacy – that the Pope was entering into through the Synod of the Amazons. Curiously, Gänswein is now pressing charges against the cardinal, denying what were then attributed to his own infidelity. The title in which he tells what happened is called Sarah’s botch.
One of the revelations that the book now also provides is the intrastory of the resignation from the papacy. “Benedict’s original idea was to announce his resignation at the end of the Christmas greeting audience with the Roman Curia, which was scheduled for December 21 of this year. He wanted to put January 25, 2013 as the date on which the pontificate would end, the feast of the conversion of St. Paul. When he told me about it in mid-October, I replied, ‘Holy Father, let me tell you, if you do this, nobody will be celebrating Christmas this year, not in the Vatican, not anywhere. It will be like a pitcher of cold water. He understood the motivation and finally settled on February 11.”
“I will not return to work tomorrow”
Relations with Francisco reportedly began to sour when the pope transformed him into a “diminished prefect” upon his arrival in the pontificate. Gänswein was during the reign of Benedict XVI. Prefect of the Papal Household, but Bergoglio did not want him to continue in that role. “He looked at me with a serious expression and said in surprise, ‘Stay at home from now on. Accompany Benedikto who needs you and be a shield. I was very shocked and speechless. When I tried to answer, he ended the call: “You will continue to be a prefect, but starting tomorrow you will no longer be working.” Gänswein, he says in the book, replied that he did not share the decision, but obediently stuck to it. He later returned to the monastery and told Benedict XVI about it. “It seems that the Pope no longer trusts me and wants you to be my supervisor,” Raztinger Gänswein replied, as he has now published.
The question now is whether Ratzinger’s secretary will be punished for the service she has rendered over the years, or will she be honorably discharged. His meeting with Francisco initially took place when he was still Prefect of the Papal Household. And there is no news of his release. His return to Germany does not seem likely either. The President of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, has already indicated: “It depends on who is directly affected and who makes these decisions in the Vatican Curia.”
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