A year and a half after Benedict XVI’s death, Pope Francis has given a new position to his former secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, by appointing him as the apostolic nuncio to the Baltic states (Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia), the Holy See Press Office announced on June 24, 2024.
In June 2005, a few weeks after the Pope John Paul II’s death, his personal secretary, the influential Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, was appointed Archbishop of Krakow by Benedict XVI. The German Pope’s secretary, Archbishop Gänswein, had to wait a year and a half before being made the Vatican ambassador to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). This is the 67-year-old archbishop’s first diplomatic mission.
Gänswein was Benedict XVI’s private secretary from 2003 to 2022 and was officially the Prefect of the Papal Household until February 28, 2023. He reportedly has had some tensions with Pope Francis since 2020 and has been publicly at odds with the Pontiff. In June 2023, Francis had asked Archbishop Gänswein to return to his home diocese in Germany for the time being, without any particular position or responsibility.
The fact that Archbishop Gänswein has not been given a role in his native Germany may be due to a desire to not accentuate existing divisions amongst the episcopate, especially considering the local synodal path that the Church in Germany is currently engaged in. In recent years, Archbishop Gänswein has repeatedly criticized this initiative, which has been supported by the majority of German bishops, who have come out in favor of numerous changes in the Church (for example the ordination of women, marriage of priests, etc). The former secretary had claimed that Benedict XVI was perceived as an “obstacle” by certain supporters of the synodal path.
Some controversial events
Archbishop Gänswein was one of the transitional figures between the pontificates of Benedict XVI and Francis, and continued to serve as Prefect of the Papal Household after 2013.
Pope Francis had put him on leave from his responsibilities in January 2020, after the controversy caused by Benedict XVI’s participation in a book by Cardinal Robert Sarah on priestly celibacy. The book had been interpreted as a way of putting pressure on Pope Francis by using his predecessor’s moral authority. The Pope had then asked the German archbishop to concentrate on his mission as secretary to Benedict XVI.
In Gänswein’s memoir, published in January 2023 a few days after Benedict XVI’s death, he denied having been aware of how the book would be presented and described. In this same text, Archbishop Gänswein also stated that there were disagreements between the Argentinian pontiff and his predecessor, claiming in particular that Benedict XVI would have considered as an ‘error’ the 2021 motu proprio Traditionis custodes, that reversed the liberalization of the Tridentine Mass.
In the book-interview “El Sucesor,” published in Spanish by Javier Martinez Brocal in April 2024, Pope Francis acknowledged the at times tense relationship with Archbishop Gänswein.
And today we celebrate...