Pope Francis, banishing 'Gorgeous Georg' to Germany, tells him to eschew expensive furniture collection

 VATICAN CITY -- The reported dispute between the rebellious former personal secretary to the late Pope Benedict, Archbishop Georg Gänswein and Pope Francis reached new tensions when the pontiff told the archbishop during a recent audience to return to his native Germany and to get rid of a vast collection of Benedict's furniture that Ganswein inherited, Fatto Quotidiano newspaper reported. 

 Archbishop Gänswein, nicknamed 'Gorgeous Georg? in his youth because of his good looks, was quoted as complaining to Francis that his orders to leave Rome amounted to “a humiliation before the world,” Il Fatto Quotidiano said. Following Benedict’s death on Dec. 31, 2022, has levelled various public criticisms at Francis. The archbishop was consequently ordered, during a private audience on May 19 to return to Germany, specifically to his diocese of Freiburg, without any job to go to there.

 Fatto claims that Archbishop Gänswein tried to get Francis to allow him to stay on the ground that he had a vast quantity of furniture bequeathed to him by Benedict and that he had only recently moved into a huge 300 sq M apartment inside the Vatican. In the same Santa Marta Vecchia guesthouse, Francis lives in a modest, two-room 70 M suite.

 According to Fatto, the pope told him to get rid of the furniture, as "the fewer possessions a priest has the better." Gänswein proffered that if he had known he would soon be ordered to leave the Vatican and return to Germany, he never would have moved from the Mater Ecclesiae monastery to the Santa Marta apartment. 

 The archbishop has already left the Vatican and was staying in a flat in Borromeo College. It is highly unlikely, at least for the time being, that any pastoral role will be entrusted to him by the archbishop of Freiburg, Monsignor Stephan Burger, who has seemingly received precise instructions from the pope, Fatto said. This is despite Gänswein expecting, from Pope Francis, a prestigious job in the Curia, the central government of the Roman Catholic Church, il Fatto said. 

 Immediately after the death of Benedict, the archbishop attacked Pope Francis harshly in his memoir “Nothing but the Truth” and in numerous interviews.

 Francis explained to the former prefect of the Papal Household that humiliations, especially in the life of a priest, are positive because they aid one’s spiritual growth.

 This long-distance clash also had three fiery face-to-face meetings in as many private audiences granted by the pope to Gänswein earlier this year. The decision regarding the archbishop’s return to Germany was then made public by the Holy See Press Office: "On 28 February 2023 H.E. Archbishop Georg Gänswein concluded his assignment as Prefect of the Papal Household. The Holy Father has ordered that Archbishop Gänswein return, for the time being, to his home diocese as of 1 July.”

 During their last meeting, Gänswein then argued to Francis that he was unlikely to find an apartment in Freiburg that could contain all his furnishings. 

Gänswein, after the death of Benedict XVI, was convinced that Francis would give him responsibility for a new office. "I am waiting for another assignment,” Gänswein expressed shortly after Pope Benedict's death, adding: “I hope Pope Francis trusts me.”

 Pope Francis had also wanted to clarify his relationship with his predecessor: "I was able to speak about everything with Pope Benedict, and exchange opinions, and he was always at my side, and if he had any difficulties he would tell me and we would talk and there were no problems.”

 Within the Vatican, there are now those who believe that Gänswein will not remain silent in the future and that the dispute with Francis is just the beginning, Fatto claimed.

 es