Who is Georg Gänswein, the “George Clooney” of the Vatican loyal to Benedict XVI who positions himself as the face of the “anti-Francis” wing?

Just hours from the solemn funeral of the pope emeritus Benedict XVIwho died last Saturday at the age of 95, but who, as he highlighted L’Osservatore Romanoreceived a funeral at the height of a pontiff this week, in a rarefied climate, who is under the magnifying glass is his longtime private secretary, the German Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

In a commercial operation probably not wanted by him, the most explosive advances in his book Nothing but the truth, my life next to Benedict XVIplus some interviews in which he seemed to take out the dirty laundry and highlighting the differences between two popes -one acting and the other emeritus- who for almost ten years had an exemplary forced coexistence, created unrest. It was not the time above all out of respect for the impressive legacy of the emeritus pope and the silence that he imposed on himself since his resounding resignation, announced to the world on February 11, 2013, many think.

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But who is he really? “Father Giorgio”, as some call him, that 66-year-old man whose future today seems a question mark? Sports lover, in the past he was on the covers of magazines such as Vanity Fair and was photographed playing tennis at a club in Rome that is very close to the small state of the Vatican. She devoted the last years of her life to caring for the already frail and elderly Joseph Ratzinger, whose cypress coffin she kissed on Thursday at his solemn funeral. But now, with his unexpected, seemingly venom-filled confessions, some see him as a virtual new spokesperson for the most conservative and anti-Francisco sectors.

Georg Gänswein pays homage to Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Basilica. (Andrew Medichini – AP /)

Born in Reidem am Wald, in the German Black Forest, on July 30, 1956, the eldest of five children, Before entering the seminary, Don Georg obtained a pilot’s license; in addition, he worked briefly as a postman and was a ski instructor. Ordained a priest in Freiburg in 1984, Gänswein was soon sent to Rome to study canon law, a subject he later went on to teach at Opus Dei’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

At the service of Benedict

In 2003, two years before being elected Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a German like him, he chose him to be his private secretary in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faithwhere Gänswein He had started working in 1996.

As he recalled in the diary abc Spanish Vatican member Javier Martínez Brocal, Gänswein accompanied Cardinal Ratzinger to the conclave in April 2005, after the death of John Paul II. But he did not enter the Sistine Chapel. And when he realized who had been chosen, he was shocked. “I saw in the background a man dressed completely in white, even his hair was white. I recognized him immediately, it was a kind of tsunami”, he confessed years later.

Georg Gänswein pays homage to Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Basilica. (TIZIANA FABI – AFP /)

He was 48 years old, thirty years younger than Benedict, who had just turned 78. And when he greeted the newly elected pontiff, he kissed his hand and assured him in a low voice: “I promise you my total availability for life and for death.” Since then, she has accompanied him both in the good times of the pontificate, such as during his great speeches in Westminster Hall or in the Reichstag in Berlin, as well as in the bad ones, such as the Regensburg crisis, the encounters with victims of abuse or the betrayal of his butler.

In fact, in 2012, in the midst of the so-called Vatileaks storm, which also hit him personally, when it was published Your Holiness, the secret letters of Benedict XVIby journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, Gänswein was the first to deduce that Paolo Gabriele, Benedicto’s former butler, was responsible for the leaked documents. So, he immediately informed Benedict XVI that he suspected the unsuspecting butler and, after a dramatic meeting with the other members of the “pontifical family” (who cared for Benedict in his apartment on the fifth floor of the Apostolic Palace), he directly accused Gabriele of to have been the “crow”. Although he denied it at first, he later confessed everything.

It is believed that precisely because of such loyalty, on January 6, 2013, shortly before his abdication, Benedict XVI ordained him archbishop. And, a few weeks before, Prefect of the Papal Household, a key position. From that place -previously occupied by the American cardinal James Harvey-, in addition to shielding him, he became someone of immense influence, being the man who decided who could have an audience with the Pope.

Georg Gänswein and Pope Francis. (Archive/)

In that same January, the Italian edition of the magazine Vanity Fair -bible of fashion and gossip of the famous-, he dedicated the cover to Gänswein, of whom he highlighted that when he was young he wore long hair and listened to Pink Floyd and that he received love letters. “Being cute is not a sin” titled Vanity Fair about Gänswein, famous for his female friendships (a great friend is Princess Alessandra Borghese, a writer from the Roman nobility).

Shortly thereafter, Benedict’s resignation was a severe blow to Gänswein. His tears when the resigning pope left the Apostolic Palace and moved for a brief time to the Castel Gandolfo residence went around the world in a live broadcast of that historic moment.

complications

With the election of the end of the world pope, on March 13, 2013, things got complicated for him with this double role of servant of two popes: as prefect of the Pontifical Household, of Francisco -position that he still formally occupies, but from which he was forced to take leave-, and as Benedict’s private secretary, already pope emeritus and with whom he moved to live at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, in the Vatican.

In an interview with this correspondent in March 2015, Gänswein admitted that it had not been easy for him, a German accustomed to a German pope, suddenly being next to a very informal Argentine pope, pretty allergic to protocol.

“The most profound change for me was that of function: going from being Pope Benedict’s private secretary to prefect of the Papal Household with Pope Francis. It was a great challenge not only in terms of work, but in terms of style. Like every person, the popes also have their personal imprint, their unmistakable style, with which they distinguish themselves. It is clear that for those who have been accustomed to a certain style for many years, if there is a change, an effort is needed to orient themselves in a new way”, he said.

Gänswein pays homage to Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Basilica. (Michael Kappeler – dpa/)

Asked if he felt a little divided serving two potatoes, Gänswein replied “no, not at all”. “Of course, I had to get used to the new reality of a reigning pope and a pope emeritus first. Although I never had any doubts that my first service is for Pope Francis. And then I also serve Pope Benedict. The first months I obviously had to do personal work, with myself. But with the passage of time I hope I have found the right way to relate to each one of them, ”he said. In that interview, when asked about his nickname of the “George Clooney” of the Vatican, Don Georg smiled and said: “At first it bothered me, now it doesn’t.”

With the passage of time things were changing. And the relationship between Francisco and the prefect of the Papal Household, always at his side when he received heads of state and government and in general audiences, grew tense. Everyone remembers that some statements made noise in which he suggested that there was “a shared Petrine ministry, with an active pope and a contemplative one.”

Georg Gänswein on the cover of Vanity Fair Italy. (Reuters/)

Although everything precipitated at the beginning of 2020, when Benedict was forced to ask that his name and signature be removed from a book in defense of celibacy that he denied co-authoring with the ultra-conservative Cardinal Robert Sarah. That book had caused a storm in the Vatican because it had appeared as undue pressure from the retired Ratzinger on his successor. This, at a time when a document was expected after the Synod on the Amazon, in which the possibility of implementing the exceptional ordination of married men as deacons had been discussed to fill the shortage of priests in remote areas.

It was then that Gänswein was left in a bad light in what appeared to be an operation by the ultra-conservative front opposed to the reformist Pope. And it was at that moment that the position of prefect of the Papal House of Gänswein was frozen. Francisco asked him to take a leave of absence to take better care of Benedicto. A virtual dismissal that shocked and left Don Georg speechless, as he himself revealed in an autobiography full of rancor that catapulted him, now, when many are still mourning the death of the emeritus pope, into the eye of the storm.

By Elisabetta Pique

Source: Elcomercio