Father Georg and Pope Francis
Father Georg meets the Pope
We remained at the mass celebrated in commemoration of Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's on December 31st, with the return to Rome of Father Georg Gänswein from the remote lands of the Black Forest, where Pope Francis had relegated him. We talked about it here.
Yesterday Pope Francis received Father Georg and the four nuns, Memores Domini, in the Vatican. who took care of Benedict at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, where he resided. This is the first meeting after his removal to Germany, to the Black Forest. I talked about it here.
The German prelate has repeatedly complained of being without office but the So far the Pope has been inflexible and has not granted him anythingespecially after the publication of his book “Nothing but the truth”, in which he shoots Francesco completely.
His public troubles are well known and began after the death of Pope Benedict XVI of whom Father Georg was the private secretary, also German.
The disagreements between the two had actually started before when the Pope had unofficially removed him from the position of Prefect of the Papal Household while still giving him his salary but telling him “from tomorrow you will no longer come to work even if you formally remain in your position”, in short, a sort of “Vatican mobbing”.
Did yesterday's surprise meeting authorize speculation about a possible return of serenity between the two? Hard to say. The fact that the four nuns also participated in the private meeting makes it seem more like a commemorative and special meeting than an opening. Pope Bergoglio is a vengeful Pope. Cardinal Burke, who was deprived of his salary and home by Francis for having challenged him on the doctrine, knows something about this.
But behind personal antipathy a much more complex game is being played which sees the pastoral care of the church at stake. In fact, both Father Georg and the American Leo Burke are conservatives, as was Benedict XVI. Two opposing visions of the Catholic Church are at play: one progressive and one conservative even if Bergoglio is in reality a Peronist Pope who perpetually oscillates between right and populist social left.
In any case Gänswein does not seem to be the right person to fight this crusade because he is only interested, by his own admission, in finding a job. The situation is different for the still powerful one Burke who must not have been very pleased by the recent humiliation suffered by Pope Francis.
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