ROME (AP) — Pope Francis met on Monday with Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, the longtime secretary to Pope Benedict XVI who was a key figure in his recent funeral but who raised his eyebrows with an extraordinary memory in which he settles old scores, reveals palace intrigues, and casts Francis in a deeply unfavorable light.
The Vatican did not provide any details about the contents of the private audience, other than to say that it happened.
Speculation over Gaenswein’s future has swirled now that his primary job with Benedict has come to an end after his Dec. 31 deaths. But questions have also been raised about what Francis will do with Gaenswein following the publication this week of his eye-opening book, “Nothing but the Truth: My Life Next to Pope Benedict XVI.”
Some Vatican watchers see the book as the first salvo in a new era of anti-Francis attacks from the conservative right, for whom Benedict remained a nostalgic point of reference in retirement. Benedict’s death and Gaenswein’s post-mortem revelations have removed the facade of a happy cohabitation of two popes.
In the text, Gaenswein reveals previously unknown details about some of the greatest hiccups and bad blood that have accumulated over the past 10 years that Benedict has lived as a retired pope following his 2013 decision to to retire, the first pope in six centuries to do so.
In one of the most explosive sections, Gaenswein says he was “shocked and speechless” when Francis essentially fired him from his day job as head of the papal household in 2020 after a scandal around his a book co-written by Benoît. Francis told Gaenswein to stop coming to the office and devote himself to caring for Benedict, essentially ending his work as a “bridge” between pontificates.
Printing previously secret letters between the two popes and relaying private conversations with the two, Gaenswein revealed that Francis refused even Benedict’s pleas to take him back. Embittered, Gaenswein described Francis as insincere, illogical and sarcastic in deciding his fate, and said Benedict XVI even mocked Francis when told of the decision.
“It seems that Pope Francis no longer trusts me and makes you my chaperone,” Gaenswein said quoting Benedict.
Gaenswein also wrote of his dismay that, years earlier, Francis had denied him the right to live in the palace apartment occupied by his predecessor. After a longer-than-usual renovation, Francis gave the apartment instead to the Vatican’s foreign minister, forcing Gaenswein to continue living in the monastery Benedict called home.
Gaenswein’s future remains uncertain, and his memoirs will certainly complicate relations with the current pope who will decide his fate. As archbishop, he could technically be appointed head of an archdiocese in his native Germany. Asked about this possibility, the head of the German bishops’ conference said last week that it was not up to him but to Francis. Additionally, some Vatican commentators have suggested that Gaenswein be made a Vatican ambassador, lead a prominent shrine, or resume his academic career.
His book is likely to win him points with traditionalist critics of Francis, as it does what Benedict refused to do for 10 years and publicly reveals what the late pope would have thought of his successor’s decisions on two crucial issues. : Gaenswein writes, for example, that Benedict thought Francis’ decision to reinstate restrictions on the celebration of the Old Mass in Latin was a “mistake” and that his work with divorced and civilly remarried Catholics was “perplexed.”
He is also interested in something else when he quotes Francis saying that having Benedict in the Vatican was like having a wise grandfather at home to whom he could turn for advice. Gaenswein quoted Benedict as noting that he was only nine years older than Francis and that “perhaps it would be more correct to call me his ‘older brother'”.
Gaenswein, a 66-year-old German canon lawyer, stood by Benedict for nearly three decades, first as a civil servant working for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then from from 2003 as Ratzinger’s personal secretary. .
He followed him to the Apostolic Palace when Ratzinger was elected pope, then retired when Benedict resigned. In this capacity, he remained Benedict’s guardian, confidant and spokesman, and in the new book he seems eager to set the record straight to defend Benedict and himself once again.
In it, he rekindles old dust with journalistic coverage of him or Benoît, everything to the type of letterhead he used for a sentence he uttered, suggesting that he had kept track of all these years and, with the death of Benoît, felt that he could finally speak. outside.
Although there is no playbook describing how a retired pope’s secretary should behave, publishing a book within a week of his death that criticizes his successor, reveals private correspondence, and feeds old grudges in finely documented detail certainly does not follow the typical reserve of Vatican Protocol.
Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Francis who has co-authored a book with him, noted in a series of Monday tweets that Gaenswein’s book actually appeared to violate a fundamental promise Benedict made when he resigned: that he would obey his successor.
These revelations undermine Benedict’s oath of loyalty to Francis, to which Benedict strictly adhered; violating Gaenswein’s duty of confidentiality to both … and encouraging those who falsely seek to oppose Benedict XVI’s legacy to Francis,” Ivereigh wrote.
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