The Pope’s secretary is gaining increasing mediation power among Vatican leaders
GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Vatican City
From the moment Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope, even Avvenire, the newspaper published by the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), has focused on his secretary’s robust countenance, describing him as a “Blond, 1 metre 80 cm tall, athletic body and distinctly good looking man.” For a long time he was just the priest in a black cassock that took care of Benedict XVI’s agenda. More than a butler but not quite a spin doctor. Things have changed however since the “dossier war” broke out, in the Vatican, between the old guard who were close to Angelo Sodano and the current leadership loyal to the Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
As the successor to Fr. Stanislao Dziwisz in the second half of John Paul II’s pontificate, Fr. Georg Gaenswein has become the barycentre and mediator of a Curia that is writhing with poison pen letter writers and spies. This 50 year old man, who combines athletic build with the grizzled charm of Hugh Grant, is the son of a blacksmith from the Black Forest, a former postman and a Pink Floyd fan. From family quarrels about the length of his hair, he went on to develop a passion for the stock market until he finally found his true love: theology. After obtaining a degree in Canon law in Munich, he arrived in the Vatican entering the Congregation for Divine Worship and the following year entered the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. For the past decade he has shown complete dedication to Benedict XVI. The Pope’s secretary is no longer just the “guardian angel” of the papal apartment but the “dominus” of the Holy See which upon his arrival he had described to mass media as a mixture of fear and aloofness: “The Vatican is also a court and so like in any court, rumours and gossip exist here too.
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