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Vatican City – Monsignor Georg Gaesnwein recently left the hospital where he was rushed to the hospital for kidney stones. Initially, the news had not leaked and had been kept undercover, also to avoid raising an outcry, according to the precise indications given by the personal secretary of the Pope Emeritus. But his hospitalization could not go unnoticed and that is why the messages of good wishes were not lacking, so much so that today, through the Catholic agency Cna, he thanked all those who in recent days have sent him a thought of friendship. “May God reward you for your support.”
Don Georg will probably remember 2020 as the annus horribilis. A year that began with his sudden dismissal from the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, an important center of information and power. The official version of his expulsion decided by Francesco was due to a normal “redistribution of internal work”. The truth is that its proportions were at an all-time low. Pope Francis would not have digested with Gaenswein that he had handled the messy history of the book written by Pope Emeritus and Cardinal Robert Sarah. The volume entitled “From the Bottom of Our Hearts” contained a dramatic call to oppose the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy that had ended up fueling the idea of a conflict between the two Popes.
Shortly after that episode the confinement came and Fr. Georg spent it in the monastery on the Vatican hill with the pope emeritus growing weaker and saddened by the news from Bavaria about the health of his brother Fr. Georg. Ratizinger, who later passed away in the month. of July. Heartfelt and deep mourning for the small religious community on the Vatican hill, as well as for Joseph Ratzinger who, as a consequence, fell ill with a virus, a kind of herpes zoster quite painful and aggressive. Don Georg has always been close to the pontiff.
But the greatest stress probably touched him personally when he was called to give written testimony about a rather harsh trial that is taking place in a Bavarian diocese and that features two German priests, a former head of the secretary of state, Monsignor Kuhn. Accused of sexual harassment and abuse by a former subordinate. According to the victim, Fr. Georg Gaesnwein was aware of the case. Much remains to be clarified, the process continues and many details have been published in the German newspapers causing quite a stir.
For Don Georg it is undoubtedly another source of stress and disappointment to drive. Gaenswein was born in Riedern am Wald, Germany, in 1956. In 1995, 11 years after his ordination, he left Germany for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 2003 he became the personal secretary of the future. Pope Benedict XVI. In 2012 he was appointed prefect of the papal house, continuing in office after the resignation of Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis a year later.
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