Pope Francis orders Gänswein to leave Vatican and return home without new role

Pope Francis has ordered Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict XVI’s long-serving private secretary, to leave the Vatican by 1 July, a German newspaper has reported.

According to the report in the German daily newspaper “Welt”, Pope Francis instructed the 66-year-old to leave Rome by July 1 at the latest and return to his home diocese of Freiburg, without assigning him a new role. 

The decision, which is said to have been preceded by “a back and forth of several weeks”, was made on 19 May at an official private audience.

A longtime secretary to Benedict, Gänswein also served as prefect of the Papal Household to both Benedict and his successor, Pope Francis, until February 2020.

Gänswein’s next move has been the subject of much speculation around Rome and the Vatican since the death of Pope Benedict XVI on New Year’s Eve 2022. He has been received by Pope Frances in a private audience three times since. 

According to the report, Gänswein made various suggestions about his next role to Pope Francis, who in turn suggested he might work as a professor of theology in his home diocese. 

The Argentine newspaper “La Nación” reported in April that Francis is said to have reminded Gänswein that it is customary for the private secretaries of deceased popes to return to their dioceses – as, for example, did Stanislaw Dziwisz, who returned to Krakow after the death of John Paul II.

Up until now, there had been speculation about Gänswein becoming Vatican ambassador to Costa Rica or the Archbishop of Bamberg, a position which was made vacant after the resignation of Ludwig Schick.

Hailing from the Black Forest region of Germany, the son of a blacksmith was ordained a priest in 1984 by Archbishop Oskar Saier in Freiburg and holds a doctorate in canon law from Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. 

Gänswein is expected in Germany later this week. He is scheduled to preside over Mass on Sunday, June 4, for an annual pilgrimage to the Cistercian monastery of Stiepel near Bochum, in Western Germany.

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