The Diplomatic Quandary of Don Georg: Between Vatican Strategy and Public Scrutiny

For years, the case of Don Georg has been cumbersome and even now that a solution has been found by assigning him a diplomatic role in the Baltic States, there remain several concerns. According to what has been reported by Il Messaggero, everything is proceeding according to the technical times required by the practice, and the approval seems to have actually been forwarded to the interested chancelleries. However, the release of the Pope's book "El Sucessor" is fueling significant reflections. For the former secretary of Benedict XVI, the diplomatic task at the current state could prove to be really not easy. "One wonders what credibility a pontifical representative can have who has been defined by the one he represents, that is, the Pope, through a book just released and spread all over the world, as a blameworthy person, with questionable behaviors, even insincere. The adjectives spent for the figure of the former personal secretary of Benedict XVI are really heavy and will hardly go unnoticed in future work in the nunciature," comments a long-standing diplomat to Il Messaggero. As if to say, it will be a lame duck. Pope Francis and the puzzle of Don Georg, where will he place the awkward secretary of Benedict XVI? In the book El Sucessor, the Pope said: "there was a lack of nobility and humanity" on the part of Don Georg. The reference was to the decision to publish after Ratzinger's death his book of memoirs ("Nothing but the truth. My life alongside Benedict XVI") full of criticism. "It caused me great pain: that on the day of the funeral a book is published that has turned me upside down, telling things that are not true, is very sad. Of course, it does not affect me, in the sense that it does not condition me. But it hurt me that Benedict was used," Bergoglio stated. Those judgments date back to last year, when the Pope gave the interview to the Spanish journalist Martinez Brocal. Subsequently, Don Georg asked to be received at Santa Marta to implore the Pope to assign him a task, making him aware that in Freiburg - where he currently lives - it is humiliating and psychologically heavy to bear doing nothing. Don Georg also assured the Pope of dedication and loyalty on television by going to Bruno Vespa. An attentive observer of Vatican affairs, Luis Badilla, already director and founder of the Sismografo, spoke of a precise strategy, that of letting the news that Francis had really forgiven Gänswein, forgetting all the past tripping and misconduct, filter through "the parallel press room of Santa Marta" and not through official channels. "Circulating this possibility using the so-called Press Room of Santa Marta, could be an attempt to lower or mitigate the tone of criticism of the Pope for his behavior in this story he narrated in the book, and give the idea, albeit unlikely, that Gänswein trades the custody of Ratzinger's human legacy for a Nunciature, where to live quietly and out of hostilities." A year ago, in March 2023, the Spanish web magazine "Religión Digital", published that the Pope was about to appoint Gänswein as Apostolic Nuncio in Costa Rica. The matter died there, also because Don Georg does not speak Spanish, despite being multilingual, and he himself did not want to move too far from Europe. At the moment there are about twenty vacant nunciature seats but the most likely for the characteristics of Don Georg remains indeed that in the Baltic countries.