Benedict Called Sarah, While Gänswein Was Away

Sandro Magister (February 12) writes that in the morning of January 15, Benedict called Cardinal Sarah, first at home, and then, because he was not there, at his office. A sorrowful Benedict expressed his solidarity with Sarah.

Simulteaneously, an unsuspecting Gänswein was sitting near Francis during a Wednesday audience.

A day earlier, Gänswein had caused an uproar by “denying” Benedict’s authorship of the Ratzinger/Sarah book.

During the phone call both, Benedict and Sarah, cried.

Then, on January 17, Sarah met Benedict twice at 5 p.m. and at 7 p.m.

Together, they wrote a short communiqué that Benedict wished to publish under his name alone, to express a full accord between the two co-authors.

Gänswein handed the statement to Deputy Secretary of State Edgar Peña, but the Vatican never published the text.

According to Magister, Benedict’s declaration was the reason why Francis fired Gänswein who appeared the last time in public on January 17.

Francis understood that Gänswein’s denials of Benedict’s authorship were mendacious.

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