After the death of Benedict XVI, his secretary has announced that he will publish his memoirs to refute the slanders

After the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who passed away on December 31 in Italy, his private secretary announced it publish his memoirs in which he faces the slander who reproached him during his pontificate.

This was reported by Monsignor Georg Gänswein, who accompanied the historical figure of the Church until the last days of his life and who, a few hours before his death, had announced that he was fading “slowly and serenely”.

As he underlined, his memories will come to light in January 2023 in a book entitled “Nothing but the truth. My life alongside Benedict XVI”. In its Spanish translation: “Nothing but the truth. My life with Benedict XVI”.

It will be published by the Piemme de Mondadori publishing house in the first days of next month and will explain the “misunderstood” aspects during the period in which the pope was in office.

Gänswein, the German priest whom Benedict XVI chose as his private secretary in 2003, has promised to publish in his book “the very truth about the miserable slanders and the obscure maneuvers that have tried in vain to cast shadows on the magisterium and on the work of the government German pontiff”.

And he revealed in writing: “These pages contain a personal testimony of the greatness of a calm man, a fine scholar, a cardinal and a pope who made the history of our time. But they are also a first-person account that tries to shed light on some misunderstood aspects of his pontificate and describe the real ‘Vatican world’ from within”.

The death of Benedict XVI

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI died on Saturday 31 December at the age of 95, full of aches and pains but with a clear mind, a historical figure of the Church, a great theologian, who was at the forefront of Vatican leadership for forty years. As reported by the Vatican, the death occurred at 9:34 am Italian time, in the residence of the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery.

First, since 1981, as Cardinal Custos of Doctrinal Orthodoxy and Church Discipline. Joseph Ratzinger was the trusted man of St. John Paul II, practically the number two in the Church for importance and influence in the long 26 years of Karol Wojtyla’s pontificate.

The Polish Pope guided him in his succession by appointing him dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, which allowed him in 2005 to lead the 115 cardinals who elected him in two days in the Sistine Chapel with the name of Benedict XVI. Once again it has been demonstrated that the saying he assures is not true: whoever enters the Conclave as Pope leaves it as Cardinal.

After eight years of conservative pontificate, Ratzinger resigned on February 28, 2013, a long-considered decision.

He once confessed that he decided to quit in August 2012 when he realized that he no longer had the physical and mental strength to continue. In 1991 he had suffered a stroke, a family disease, which in two years had caused him to lose sight in his left eye. He also had other ailments that he managed to survive for a long time.

With information from agencies

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