All Christians are commanded not to lie, which is why a book title like “Nothing but the Truth” might seem appropriate to a high clergyman like Georg Gänswein. The former private secretary of the late Pope Benedict XVI. participates with his book in the struggle for the sovereignty of interpretation in the Catholic Church. When Gänswein reads from it this Saturday evening in the Upper Bavarian pilgrimage town of Altötting at the invitation of a bookstore, a small group of church members will gather in front of the door of the Forum congress center didn’t take it very seriously.
The sourdough initiative from Garching an der Alz has registered its vigil, which is also supported by other organizations, as a demonstration. She has made it her mission to address the issue of abuse in the church. Among other things, she accompanies the civil lawsuit of a victim of abuse against the former Garching pastor and against those church leaders who had sent the previously convicted abuser to their community – including Benedict in his time as Archbishop of Munich and as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. On Sunday, Benedikt’s birthday, Gänswein will celebrate the service for the feast of Saint Konrad von Parzham in Altötting and later advertise and sign his bestseller at Benedikt’s birthplace in Marktl am Inn.