Despite tensions with Pope Francis which have sometimes boiled over into public view, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict XVI’s longtime secretary, will become the pope’s representative to the Baltic states.
Almost a year after Pope Francis directed the archbishop to return to his home diocese of Freiburg in southwest Germany without an assignment in July 2023, the Vatican announced on 24th June that Archbishop Gänswein will become the apostolic nuncio to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.
The archbishop had been Pope Benedict’s personal secretary since 2003, when the future pope was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and prefect of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He continued to serve as his secretary after he was elected pope in 2005.
Pope Benedict appointed him prefect of the papal household in 2012 and ordained him a bishop a little more than a month before announcing his resignation in February 2013. Archbishop Gänswein continued in that role as prefect under Pope Francis until 2020 when the pope told him to assist the retired Pope Benedict full time, although he retained his title as prefect.
Picture: Pope Francis meets Archbishop Georg Gänswein, personal secretary to the late Pope Benedict XVI, in the library of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican in this file photo from 19th May 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)