Pope sends Gänswein to the Baltic States as Vatican ambassador
Published: Monday, Jun 24th 2024, 13:10
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Pope Francis is sending the long-time private secretary of his predecessor Benedict XVI, the German Georg Gänswein, as Vatican ambassador to the Baltic states.
As the Holy See announced on Monday, Gänswein will become the so-called Apostolic Nuncio in Vilnius. As ambassador, he will represent the interests of the Vatican in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.
The 67-year-old currently holds no office. In June 2023, Francis transferred Gänswein to Freiburg, where his home diocese is located.
The relationship between Francis and Gänswein has been strained for some time. After Benedict XVI's resignation in 2013, the Black Forest native had looked after the pontiff emeritus as his closest confidant for almost ten years.
Immediately after his death on December 31, 2022, he published a book. In Germany, "Nothing but the Truth" reached number one on the non-fiction bestseller list. In it, Gänswein expressed his disappointment with Francis and published some private letters.
The Pope then transferred him back to his home country. Gänswein repeatedly expressed his unease that Francis had sent him to Germany without a mission. For his part, Francis accused the German of a "lack of humanity" in a book and accused him of spreading untruths about him.
Gänswein worked in the Vatican for almost three decades. In 1995, he was called to Rome, where he then joined the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith within the Curia, the successor to the Roman Inquisition. Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI's real name, was prefect there at the time. In 2003, he made Gänswein his assistant.
Gänswein had been Prefect of the Papal Household since the end of 2012 and thus held one of the most important posts in the Vatican. Francis then put Gänswein on leave a few years ago and removed him from the post completely a few months before his forced transfer to Freiburg im Breisgau.
©Keystone/SDA
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