Pope Benedict's confidant spills beans on two-popes tension
Just one week after the funeral of Benedict XVI, his closest aide released a much-trailed memoir Thursday, revealing details of tensions between the late pope emeritus and his more liberal successor Pope Francis.
Georg Gaenswein's book reveals private conversations with both popes in charting the German ex-pontiff's rise to power and the decade spent in retirement following his shock resignation in 2013.
The Vatican has not officially responded but Pope Francis called Gaenswein in to a private meeting on Monday, following days of pre-publication interviews in which the 66-year-old German aired years of grievances.
In one, he claimed it had "pained Benedict's heart" when Francis effectively reversed his predecessor's decision to relax restrictions on the use of the traditional Latin mass.
Up until his death on December 31 at the age of 95, Benedict had remained a figurehead for the conservative wing of the Catholic Church, which views Pope Francis as too liberal.
Shocked and speechless
As his secretary since 2003, Gaenswein was a constant presence at Benedict's side, and during his final years living in a monastery in the Vatican grounds, his gatekeeper.
After Benedict's death,...