Pope Benedict XVI’s aide acknowledges criticism over memoir

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ROME — The longtime secretary to Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Sunday that his tell-all memoir, revealed within the days after Benedict’s dying, had been criticized for casting Pope Francis in an unfavorable mild, however insisted that a number of the polemics had been extra about anti-Benedict prejudice than the rest.

In a few of his first public feedback since Benedict’s Dec. 31 dying, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein mentioned he remained loyal to Francis and that he was nonetheless ready for the pontiff to offer him a brand new job.

Gaenswein’s future has been the topic of a lot hypothesis following Benedict’s dying and the publication of “Nothing But the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI.” In the memoir, Gaenswein charted his practically 30 years working with Benedict, but in addition settled previous scores, revealed palace intrigues and detailed a number of the dangerous blood that accrued through the decade by which Benedict lived as a retired pope alongside Francis.

Published through the emotional interval round Benedict’s Jan. 5 funeral, the e book got here to encapsulate the conservative criticism that has been directed at Francis and his extra progressive bent by individuals nostalgic for Benedict’s doctrinaire papacy.

Speaking to Sky TG24 Sunday after celebrating Mass at a Rome-area church, Gaenswein acknowledged his e book had raised eyebrows each for its content material and the timing of its publication.

“There are and will be criticisms,” he mentioned. “And I have to live with the criticisms.”

He mentioned that he welcomed well-founded criticism.

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“If the criticisms aren’t well-founded, but are criticisms from (anti-Benedict) prejudice or other unfounded motives, I have to accept them, but I cannot take them seriously. True criticism I accept and I learn from,” he mentioned.

He spoke to Sky at Santa Maria Consolatrice, which was the titular church of Benedict when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. After the Mass, a plaque honoring the late pope was unveiled.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Jan. 24, Francis responded to Gaenswein’s critiques, and people of different conservatives, by saying they had been pure after 10 years and proved that the prelates felt free to talk.

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