Pope confidant
Gänswein kisses Benedict’s coffin goodbye
Benedict’s longtime private secretary Georg Gänswein kneels at the coffin of the late Pope Emeritus. photo
© Michael Kappeler/dpa
Few knew the late Pope as well as Georg Gänswein. Benedikt’s private secretary says goodbye on St. Peter’s Square with a special gesture.
Before the requiem for the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. his longtime confidante and private secretary Georg Gänswein said goodbye with a special gesture. The archbishop bent over the coffin in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday morning and kissed it.
Nobody has been closer to Benedict than Gänswein in recent years. In 2012, his mentor appointed him Archbishop Curia – that is, a bishop with a function in the Vatican but without a diocese – after he had been Benedict’s assistant and secretary for almost ten years. The two were already working together when Benedict was still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under his birth name Joseph Ratzinger.