Archbishop Georg Gänswein, former secretary of Pope Benedict XVI, said he hopes the beatification process will begin soon for the German pontiff, who died on Dec. 31, 2022.
“Personally, I have great hopes that this process will be opened,” the archbishop and current apostolic nuncio to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia said in an interview with the television channel K-TV, which aired Dec. 7.
According to current Church regulations, a potential beatification process for Pope Benedict XVI could only begin five years after his death unless the current pope grants special authorization before then, as Joseph Ratzinger himself did with John Paul II, waiving this waiting period.
In the excerpt from the interview, published by the German Catholic media outlet Katholisch, Gänswein emphasized that one of Pope Benedict’s essential qualities for understanding the faith was joy.
The archbishop noted that, for the German pontiff, if faith does not lead to joy, “something is not right in one’s life of faith. Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, is a theologian of joy.”
Gänswein also said that another important lesson from the late pope is that “we must not compromise on the essentials; rather, we must allow ourselves to be shaped by the Lord, by the faith of the Church.”
In the interview, Gänswein also spoke about the tensions that arose after the publication of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes — with which Pope Francis restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass — and encouraged efforts to overcome these tensions.
In 2007, Pope Benedict liberalized the opportunities to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass with his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.
“I believe that Pope Benedict’s wise decision was the right one, and this path should be continued without difficulty or restriction,” Ratzinger’s former secretary said.
On Oct. 25 of this year, Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura, celebrated a solemn Traditional Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, an event that seemingly demonstrated Pope Leo XIV’s openness to this rite.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
