Benedict XVI with father Georg

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Vatican City10 February 2014 Benedict XVI's decision to renounce the Petrine ministry "for me it was like a knife." This was told in an interview with the Christian Family, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, personal secretary of Joseph Ratzinger, one year after the announcement.
Had you been warned many months earlier? "Yes, of course under the pontifical secret," replies Gaenswein. "He told me I couldn't talk to anyone about it until he communicated the decision. I kept it secret even though it wasn't easy. It was like a stab wound to me, I felt great pain."

"He had made his decision"
Have you tried to dissuade him? "Instinctively I said 'no, Holy Father, it is not possible', but then I immediately understood that he was not telling me something to discuss, but a decision already made. Since then I have tried to relieve external pressures, to thin out his commitments to concentrate on the magisterium. "

"Vatileaks did not influence his choice"
According to Gaenswein, scandals such as that of the Vatileaks, the escape of the Pope's confidential documents, have nothing to do with the decision made: "No, not at all. Everything that is known as Vatileaks has not at all conditioned or even caused the renunciation. Nor the story of pedophilia. " The renunciation was not an escape explains Father Georg: "The Pope did not run away from a responsibility, but he was courageous because he said to himself: 'I no longer have the strength that is necessary at this moment and then I gave back the responsibility to the One who he gave it to the Lord '".

"Pope Francis called Ratzinger immediately after the election"
Father Georg recounts what happened with the election of the new Pontiff: "On the evening of March 13, after the election, I too was in the Sistine chapel to greet the new Pope and to promise him obedience. And immediately, Pope Francis asked about Pope Benedict and said he wanted to phone him. I made the phone number myself and gave it to him. And ten days after the election, on March 23rd, Pope Francis went to Castel Gandolfo in person to visit his predecessor There is a very cordial and affectionate relationship between two people who had not frequented much before. "