Archbishop Georg Gänswein talks about his reconciliation with Pope Francis

Archbishop Georg Gänswein and Pope Francis reconciled before the previous Pontiff died in Rome on April 21, 2025. In a Exclusive interview with Ewtn NewsMons. Gänswein admitted that between him and Pope Francis there were “certain difficulties, certain tensions”, although you cannot talk about a “break.” “Not everything was like the press reported it,” said former Pope Benedict XVI’s private secretary.

The reconciliation took place in January 2024, after the German prelate predicted at the commemorative mass for the first anniversary of the death of Pope Benedict XVI, on December 31, 2023, in the Basilica of San Pedro. Two days later, Mons. Gänswein had a audience with Pope Francis. “That was the moment of the distension process,” explained the archbishop. “That he was later named Nuncio in the Baltic countries is undoubtedly the result of it.”

According to CNA Deutsch – Ewtn News German Advance, in early 2020 Mons. Gänswein was “suspended” from his position as a prefect of the Pontifical House. After the death of Pope Benedict in December 2022, Pope Francis sent him back to his native diocese in Freiburg, although without a specific task. Almost a year later, in June 2024, the then Pontiff appointed Mons. Gänswein Apostolic Nuncio in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

“It was not that we separated in disagreeing,” said Mons. Gänswein in the interview Published Monday with the correspondent in Ewtn Rome, Rudolf Gehrig. Also his first audience as Nuncio, last November, was “very cordial.” Looking back, the meetings with Pope Francis in January 2024, the appointment as a nuncio in June 2024 and the audience in November 2024 constituted a “triple sequence” that returned “inner peace.” In recent days, he visited the tomb of Pope Francis and there prayed for the deceased pontiff. “And that completed reconciliation,” said the archbishop.

Mons. Gänswein about the “atmospheric presence of war” in the Baltic

Mons. Gänswein also addressed in the conversation with Ewtn News the current situation in Baltic countries. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is especially present in society, said the archbishop. Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, where Mons. Gänswein established its headquarters in the Nunciature last year, is only 600 kilometers in a straight line of kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

In general, a “distrust of the Russians is perceived in the population, especially towards Putin.” This dates back to the influence of the communist dictatorship at the time of the “steel curtain.” “There is an atmospheric presence of war,” said Mons. Gänswein. “It is important to see reality, face it, but also take it seriously. We must continue living life normally. And as Christians we have the great gift that here, in faith, we have a clear hope and also a clear message.”

While Lithuania is Catholic in 80%, in Latvia the forces between Orthodox Catholics and Christians are almost matched, with 20% each. In Estonia, on the other hand, a fifth of the population is of Russian origin, and that influence is “remarkable.”

Ecumenism in times of “fratricidal war”

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has also hindered ecumenism with the Orthodox churches, said Mons. Gänswein. The orthodox churches in the Baltic countries, which were initially under the patriarchy of Moscow, departed from the Russian-Oortodox patriarch Kiril, who even tried to legitimize the war religiously. “How can the patriarch support war; which is actually a fratricidal war, that is, orthodox fighting Orthodox? How can you support it?” Mons. Gänswein asked. “It is a new apple of discord, here it is not to cut the threads – they are not bridges – but to maintain them.”

Shortly after the beginning of the Russian invasion, Kiril and Pope Francis maintained, at the request of the Patriarch, a video call on March 16, 2022 (CNA Deutsch reported). Swiss cardinal Kurt Koch, who was present at the meeting, later said in An interview with Ewtn News: “There the Pope spoke very clearly, when he said to Patriarch: ‘We are not clergy of the State, but pastors of the people. And that is why our task must be to end this war.”

Mons. Gänswein stressed, on the other hand, that the Vatican remains necessary as a mediator. In this war it is not only about Russia and Ukraine, added the Nuncio, “the great powers play an important role.” Currently, people in Baltic countries are “something disappointed with the attitude of the current United States government, they expected something else.” Now you have to learn to deal with the “facts” and “readjust.”

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA German.