An Insider Tell-All Is About to Rip Pope Francis a New One
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had been dead for just two days when it was revealed that his personal secretary, a striking and influential cleric nicknamed “Gorgeous Georg” by the international press, was publishing a tell-all book that promised to avenge his former boss—and lambast the current pope.
The news came as a shock in the world of Vatican observers. In part, that was because it arrived as the faithful were still, literally, mourning the pontiff at the center of it all. Also because the author, German Archbishop Georg Gänswein, has worked as a high-ranking employee for both Francis and Benedict and is situated in a particularly sensitive position in the church.
“This is unprecedented,” Massimo Faggioli, a theologian and church historian at Villanova University, told me over the phone. “The shocking part is it’s the secretary of the former pope who’s raising very serious accusations against the current pope, who’s been very patient with him. At the very minimum, it’s very bad taste.”
Gänswein’s book, Nothing but the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI, will be published later this month by an imprint of Italian publishing house Mondadori. According to the AP, the book promises to set right misunderstandings about Benedict’s pontificate and the workings of the Vatican. “Today, after the death of the pope emeritus, the time has come for the current prefect of the papal household to tell his own truth about the blatant calumnies and dark maneuvers that have tried in vain to cast shadows on the German pontiff’s magisterium and actions,” a press release for the book read.
"People are often interested in these figures, because they know where all the bodies are buried."
This is highly dramatic and entirely unprecedented. But still, it isn’t entirely surprising.
More at: https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/01/pope-benedict-funeral-georg-ganswein-book.html