VATICAN CITY
The Tablet
Robert Mickens – 15 December 2012
The Pope has promoted his personal secretary to archbishop and put him in charge of the Papal Household. Here, our Rome correspondent profiles Mgr Georg Gänswein and traces his route from Germany to Benedict’s right hand
He’s been called Gorgeous George, il Bel Giorgio and even the Black Forest Adonis. And ever since making his world debut in the spring of 2005 as the 48-year-old personal secretary of the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI, Mgr Georg Gänswein has been one of the most talked about personalities at the Vatican.
Never in recent memory has a papal aide been such an obsession for tabloid writers, and adoring women. His fans have even erected several websites on the internet, mythologising the Pope’s strikingly handsome secretary as a former ski instructor, tennis player and helicopter pilot.
Currently aged 56 and with grey creeping through his sandy-coloured hair, he is still a youthful and attractive figure compared to the old men with fleshy jowls and balding heads who are more commonly associated with the Roman Curia. And now his admirers have something much more substantial to celebrate in the dashing German monsignor than merely his enduring good looks and proximity to the papal throne. Last week, Pope Benedict announced that he was making his personal assistant the prefect of the Papal Household and was elevating him to the senior rank of archbishop.
It was a surprising move that undoubtedly delighted Don Georg’s friends and fans, but one that also left many others – especially some inside the Vatican – perplexed and troubled. “The naming of Gänswein as prefect and archbishop is a scandal,” complained one church official. “The Renaissance papacy lives,” he said, clearly accusing the Pope of promoting favourites.
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