Secretary, Prefect and Increasingly Influential

By Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
January 6, 2013

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Georg Gänswein and the Pope

Father Georg Gänswein is consecrated Archbishop reinforcing his position at Benedict XVI's side

This morning in Saint Peter's Basilica Benedict XVI will ordain as bishop his private secretary, 56 year-old Georg Gänswein, the new Prefect of the Pontifical Household. The appointment of Father Georg is without precedent as he will now control even the official hearings and will continue to shadow the Pope.   The archiepiscopal promotion comes twelve months after the beginning of vatileaks: a clear recognition and declaration of appreciation for his work, but also a consequence of the scandal that shook the Vatican.

The new Prefect has a web site dedicated to him at and since 2005, when he entered the spotlight as the secretary of the new Pope, the media have not given him any peace, comparing him to George Clooney. Most famous was the comment about him expressed by Mrs Franca Ciampi during Ratzinger's first visit to the Quirinale. Interviewed on Vatican Radio for his fiftieth birthday, Father Georg remarked about the comments on his looks: "I pretended not to hear them and with time I got used to them". And he also revealed that he "had a serene and very natural relationship with women". With the passing of time and the disappearance of the gossip about "Gorgeous Georg", he carved himself an increasingly important role alongside the Pope, with an influence inversely proportional to his appearance.

Born on July 30th, 1956 at Reidern am Wald in the Black Forest region of Germany, Gänswein is the oldest of five children. Before entering the seminary he had obtained a pilot's license and for a short period of time also worked as a postman. Always interested in sports, he is a great tennis player and was also a ski instructor. Even now, it can happen that on Tuesdays he takes a day off and goes skiing with friends on the Terminillo. He was ordained priest in the archdiocese of Freiburg in 1984; he was then called to Rome and in 1996 he took service in the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith gaining recognition as a strict priest in the matters of faith. In 2003, shortly before becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger chose him as his secretary. In recent years, Gänswein has edited texts dedicated to the Pontificate; he has written prefaces for different volumes as well as for children's books inspired by the figure of Benedict XVI.

Among his friends within the sacred buildings is the Undersecretary for Relations with States, Ettore Balestrero. He also has strong ties with the head of the Vatican Gendarmerie, Domenico Giani. Attentive to traditions, he is at ease in the sphere of papal nobility (his friendship with princess Alessandra Borghese is well known), and Father Georg has also, naturally, cultivated relations in the political sphere. In the past year, with the arrival of the Monti government in Italy, Gänswein's influence was strengthened even further on account of the relationship that ties the Pope's secretary to Federico Toniato, deputy secretary of Palazzo Chigi now engaged in the creation of Monti's new civic list. The friendship between the two dates back to the period before Ratzinger's election, when the cardinal published a book with the president of the Senate at the time, Marcello Pera, and Toniato was in charge of submitting the drafts for revision to the future Pope. A bond that may have influenced the so-called Vatican "endorsement" of the Italian prime minister.

The leak of papers from the papal secretariat was a hard blow for Father Georg, who had worked with butler Paolo Gabriele for years. Despite the difficulties and a few enemies within the sacred buildings, Gänswein gained the upper hand and was ultimately strengthened by vatileaks. The Pope's decision to appoint him Prefect of the Pontifical Household testifies to Ratzinger's esteem and consideration for his secretary, who some time ago compared his role to that of a pane of glass: “I need to let the sunlight in and the less the glass is visible the better, if it cannot be seen at all it means it is fulfilling its task".