“Me your grandfather? Dear Pope Francis, you are only 9 years younger than me”. Ratzinger’s answer in Father Georg’s book
On 28 September 2014, on the occasion of Senior Citizens’ Day, from the churchyard of St. Peter’s Pope Francis thought of giving a nice greeting to Benedict XVI, saying «I have said many times that I was so pleased that he lived here in the Vatican, because it was like have the wise grandfather at home!’
But it seems that the person concerned did not take it very well. Before his secretary, Father Georg Gänswein, the Pope emeritus said: «Well, after all, we are only nine years apart. Maybe it was more correct to call me an older brother…».
Comment that the secretary of the then pope emeritus defines in his memoirs released in bookstores on Thursday 12 January as «nice».
There are many other anecdotes in the book. Children often wrote to the Pope. A child asked him: “When the Pope is alone at home, does he take off his white robe and stay in overalls or a dressing gown?”. Answer: no, he never took off his robe, always wearing the cassock and going to sleep dressed in white. The only alternative color was the red of the shoes, which however had nothing to do with Prada, contrary to what a fashion magazine wrote.
Or the Pope’s relationship with the telephone. “He never had a personal cell phone and, if necessary, he used mine or that of the second secretary. In addition to the top Vatican leaders, only a few other Italian or German friends and his brother Georg knew him, whom the Pope often called to give him at least a greeting, on an exclusive line for the two of them”.
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