In the same hours in which the world is celebrating the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI , new revelations are arriving from Monsignor Georg Gaenswein , Ratzinger's secretary, prefect of the Papal Household and dismissed by Pope Francis in 2020 while maintaining his office.
In a book to be released next week, Father Georg reveals the background to when Bergoglio ousted him from some official appointments . Up to tell him, according to what Gaenswein himself reports in the book written with the journalist and Saverio Gaeta (edizioni Piemme): «You remain prefect but from tomorrow you won't go back to work».
“I was shocked and speechless,” recalls Gaenswein. Benedict XVI commented ironically to his secretary: "I think Pope Francis no longer trusts me and wants you to be my guardian..."; Ratzinger wrote to the Argentine Pope to intercede in this situation but nothing changed.
Gaenswein, who defines himself paraphrasing Italo Calvino as a "halved prefect" , criticizes Francis and his decision to abandon the apostolic apartment.
"The personal spaces of the last Popes", underlines the German archbishop, were "equivalent to those of Francis in the Santa Marta apartment". He says he refers it "without any controversy" but to explain that it was not correct, especially in the early days, to contrast Pope Francis and Pope Benedict, due to the different choice of residence . And after all, the Apostolic Palace still has maintenance costs: «To avoid deterioration of the rooms and furnishings, it still needs to be looked after, so there is no question of economic savings at stake, but rather that of personal psychology» .
It was Francis himself who jokingly told a group of Jesuits that he did not want to live in the Apostolic Palace "for psychiatric reasons". Gaenswein also recounts that he had tried to tell Francis that the faithful looked for the light from the Pope's apartment when they passed St. Peter's. «However, I had the impression that the thousands of kilometers away from Rome had not made him share in such sensitivity» .
In today's homily on the occasion of Mass for the Epiphany, the Pope seems to be answering him: «Like the Magi, let us prostrate ourselves, let us surrender ourselves to God in the amazement of adoration. We worship God and not our self; let us adore God and not the false idols that seduce us with the allure of prestige and power, with the allure of false news . We adore God so as not to bow down before passing things and the seductive but empty logic of evil».
Gaenswein's future is now uncertain: "I think it depends above all on him and then naturally on the people who are responsible for these choices in the Vatican Curia", commented the president of the German Bishops' Conference, Monsignor Georg Baetzing. It is unlikely that he will go back to being full-fledged Prefect, one is thinking of a diplomatic post, in Latin America or Asia.
(Unioneonline/D)