Does the Pope send Archbishop Georg Gänswein to Costa Rica?
EArchbishop Georg Gänswein, Pope’s private secretary for many years Benedict XVI, to become nuncio in Costa Rica. This was reported by the Spanish portal “Religión Digital” on Tuesday afternoon. As the portal writes, citing sources in the Vatican, the Holy See informed the government in San José last week about Gänswein’s planned posting. The portal continues: “And if, as usual, there is no official response, Rome will take the ‘yes’ as given and will soon announce the future assignment of the man who has been a stumbling block in Pope Francis’ shoe for the past few months is.”
After his audience with the Pope on March 4, Gänswein said that Francis had not yet told him what task he should take on in the future. “The new task that awaits me is not yet known to me,” said Gänswein on March 8 at an event in Munich, at which he read the German-language edition of his memoir, “Nothing but the Truth. My life with Benedict XVI.
Shortly after it was published, the book climbed to the top of the Spiegel bestseller list. In Rome it is said Pope Francis I read with displeasure Gänswein’s revelations about the sometimes tense relationship between the emeritus pope and his successor, as well as about the “dismissal” of Gänswein as prefect of the papal house by Francis.
Current assignment: Papal executor
In his own words, Gänswein’s current task, as executor of the will, is to follow the last will of Pope Benedict, who died on New Year’s Eve 2022. It is about Benedict’s legacies in some bank accounts, which according to the applicable inheritance law go to five “material heirs” of Joseph Ratzinger. It is said that the five cousins from Ratzinger’s very large maternal relatives are reluctant to accept the inheritance because they fear claims for damages from abuse victims. The inheritance in Joseph Ratzinger’s private accounts is not about royalties from his book publications, as these go to a foundation dedicated to the work of the former pope.
Costa Rica, Gänswein’s presumed new field of activity, lies between Nicaragua and Panama and has a population of a good five million. In a survey conducted a few years ago, 52 percent of the population professed membership in the Roman Catholic Church. Catholicism is the official religion of Costa Rica under the constitution of the country known as the “Switzerland of Central America”. The post as nuncio in San José is considered a kind of early retirement job because in Costa Rica – unlike in neighboring Nicaragua – no political upheavals or even crises are to be expected.
In Costa Rica, too, there was abuse in the church
For Gänswein, a posting to Central America would mean a demotion, although the post of nuncio is important. In August last year, however, the country’s Catholic Church was sentenced by a court to pay compensation of around 100,000 euros to a victim of sexual abuse. In its judgment at that time, the court found that the Archbishop of San Jose, José Rafael Quirós Quirós, as the highest employer of the institution in the Central American country. The current nuncio, Archbishop Bruno Musaro, will be 75 in June and has already offered the Pope his resignation because he has reached the age limit.
Curial Archbishop Gänswein was born in 1956 in Riedern am Wald near Waldshut in Baden-Württemberg and was ordained a priest in 1984 in Freiburg Minster. He has been at the Roman Curia since 1995 Vatican employed. From March 2003 he was private secretary to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and from April 2005 to Pope Benedict XVI. On December 7, 2012, Gänswein was appointed Titular Archbishop and Prefect of the Papal Household by Benedict. Episcopal consecration by Pope Benedict XVI. took place on January 6, 2013 in St. Peter’s Basilica. Gänswein remained even after Benedict XVI’s resignation. in February 2013 as private secretary at his side until the death of the Pope Emeritus on December 31, 2022.
