After Vatican banishment: Now ex-Benedict confidant Gänswein speaks about "bitterest experience"

Merkur After Vatican banishment: Now ex-Benedict confidant Gänswein speaks about "bitterest experience" Fabian Hartmann • 3 hours • 4 minutes reading time Removal from office by the Pope Gänswein lived in his home diocese of Freiburg for a year. Now he will be the Vatican ambassador in Vilnius. For the first time, he gives insights into the difficult period after his removal from office by Francis. Vatican City/Freiburg - In the summer of 2023 (June 2, 2023), it became known that Pope Francis was relieving Pope Benedict XVI's (real name Joseph Alois Ratzinger) long-time private secretary - Archbishop Georg Gänswein - of all his duties in the Vatican. Gänswein then returned to his home diocese of Freiburg - completely without an ecclesiastical official assignment. In an interview with the Badische Zeitung, Gänswein explained how he received the news of his dismissal from the Vatican, how he dealt with it as a result, and how he now looks to the future. Former Archbishop Gänswein on his banishment from the Vatican: "Insecurity and uncertainty gnawed at me" Returning to his hometown of Freiburg without an office after being banished by Francis was an extremely difficult task for the 68-year-old. His dismissal from the Vatican plunged him into a "deep crisis". "I felt desolate, as if I had been parked. Insecurity and uncertainty gnawed at me," Gänswein explained to the Badische Zeitung on Wednesday (August 7). In June 2023, Pope Francis removed Archbishop Georg Gänswein from his offices in the Vatican. Gänswein then returned to his home diocese of Freiburg without an office. Now Gänswein will become Vatican ambassador in Vilnius, Lithuania. Gänswein describes the fact of no longer having had "any task, no office" as the "bitterest experience" of his time in Freiburg - even though he had previously carried out intensive and responsible tasks in the Vatican for many years and was closer to Pope Benedict XVI than almost anyone else. "Not knowing what the future will bring makes you uncertain and paralyzes you," Gänswein explained. Former Archbishop Gänswein had a difficult relationship with Pope Francis at times For 19 years, Gänswein had previously worked as private secretary to Pope Benedict, who died in 2022. However, his relationship with Francis has long been considered strained. Experts believe that the reason for this is that after his resignation as head of the Catholic Church (February 28, 2013), Benedict spoke out more frequently in public on church-political issues and sometimes sharply criticized the course of his successor Francis. Observers suspected Gänswein's influence here, but he resolutely denied this. After Ratzinger's death in 2022 (December 31, 2022), Gänswein moved back into the public eye. His book "Nothing but the Truth", published in July 2023, in which he writes about his office in the Vatican, made headlines because it contains details about substantive disagreements between Francis and Benedict. Francis sharply criticized the publication of the book. He accused Gänswein of a "lack of decency and humanity". After being banished from the Vatican, Gänswein found hope in the Christian faith After returning to his home diocese of Freiburg without a church assignment, Gänswein moved into an apartment in the seminary and regularly celebrated services in Freiburg Cathedral, as ZDF reported. But even in this difficult period of his life, Gänswein found comfort and hope in the Christian faith. He "always prayed vigorously and never gave up hope that God would show him a new task," as he was quoted as saying by the news and information portal of the Catholic Church in Germany, katholisch.de. However, it would not be too long before Gänswein's hopes were to find their counterpart in reality. At the end of June (June 24), it was announced that Pope Francis had a new international church office ready for the 68-year-old: Francis is sending the former close confidant of Benedict XVI to the Baltic States. In Lithuania's capital Vilnius, Gänswein will represent the values ​​of the Vatican as "Apostolic Nuncio" and thus hold the position of ambassador of the Holy See. Gänswein's new home is known as the "Rome of the East"; more than 50 churches characterize the cityscape of the Lithuanian capital. In addition to baroque bell towers, Vilnius has numerous buildings from the Gothic and Renaissance periods. The embassy of the Holy See, the so-called Apostolic Nunciature, is also located here. In addition to Lithuania, the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia are part of Gänswein's new area of ​​responsibility. Gänswein will be the Vatican ambassador in Vilnius and is optimistic about his time in the Baltic States. Gänswein sees his future role in Vilnius as a great challenge that will give him a fresh boost.