The strange case starring Benedict XVI and the publication of a book in which he questioned the possible ordination of married men to few weeks that the Pope has to decide on the matter has returned to squirm in the last few hours. EI pontiff emeritus has requested this morning that you remove your name as the author of the controversial book that has put in doubt his relationship with Francis, and became inflame in warring factions of the Church. The publication, signed with cardinal Robert Sarah —the preferred of the far right in the next conclave— opposed head-on the celibacy optional and, above all, the ordination of married men and was co-signed with Ratzinger. But now the personal secretary to cardinal Ratzinger and a person of more confidence in the last few years, George Gänswein, has said he did not know the format in which to present the contribution of Benedict XVI
Gänswein, after two days of wild imaginings and attempts of the Holy see to minimize the damage that could produce a book of this kind, has announced on Tuesday morning that it had requested the withdrawal of the signature of the pontiff emeritus. Some in the media began to publish yesterday that Benedict XVI was never involved in the work, but that everything had been “an editorial operation in the media, of which the Pope emeritus does not want to be a part of and is totally alien”. A source of the environment Ganswein said the pope emeritus “is only put at the disposal of Sarah a text on the priesthood that I was writing” and that “I knew nothing of the cover of a book, or had approved.”
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cardinal Robert Sarah, however, responded on Twitter by providing the correspondence between him and Ratzinger, which demonstrates that he was aware of how he had been the final text and gave their permission for the cardinal use it as you had described in earlier conversations. This same Tuesday, the prelate of the guinean has become to ensure in a statement that Ratzinger knew of the existence of the volume, the content and its date of publication.
The cardinal explains in its press release the steps carried out for the writing and publication of the book with the text of Benedict XVI and a prologue and a conclusion signed by both. The cardinal added that the German pope, who decided to resign the papacy in 2013, it could see the past November 19, the volume, the cover —on which appears the picture of the two— and its content. On November 25, according to these missives, Benedict XVI expressed his approval for the publication, “according to the way you had planned”. He also stressed that the December 3, visited with Joseph Ratzinger at his residence, Mater Ecclesiae, in the interior of the Vatican and where he lives since his resignation, and then told him that the book will be published on the 15th of January.
Sarah, however, has decided to ask the publisher to remove the signature of Ratzinger to the cover of the book in future editions and that the pope emeritus appears nothing more as a collaborator. The background discussion, that is to say, the content of the book and the part that both of you have written, continues to present some questions. If Sarah has lied and abused the trust of Benedict XVI, should resign as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship? In the Holy see is also concerned about the management carried out by the environment of Ratzinger and the fact that it is not protected from this type of controversy. The last days of Benedict XVI as pope were greatly turbulent, the of his retirement, an experiment in history that was so memorable, they also begin to be.
