A Tell-All Book By Pope Benedict Aide Will Reveal “Dark Maneuvers”

Longtime personal secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has written a tell-all book that his publisher has promised will reveal the truth about the “blatant calumnies,” ” dark maneuvers ,” riddles, and scandals that tarnished the reputation of a pontiff best remembered for his historic resignation.

This month, the Piemme imprint of Italian publisher Mondadori will release Archbishop Georg Gaenswein’s Nothing But the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI.

Benedict passed away on Saturday at the age of 95, and his body was placed on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday. Pope Francis, his successor, will officiate at his funeral on Thursday.

The 66-year-old priest from Germany, Archbishop Gaenswein, first served as a representative of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before taking on the role of Ratzinger’s personal secretary in 2003. He was by Benedict’s side for nearly three decades.

When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, Archbishop Gaenswein moved with his employer to the Apostolic Palace in that capacity. In one of the most moving scenes of Benedict’s final day in office on February 28, 2013, Archbishop Gaenswein sobbed as he walked with the pope through the frescoed halls of the Vatican.

He served as the prefect of Francis’ papal household until recently, and throughout Benedict’s ten-year retirement he remained his gatekeeper, confidant, and bodyguard.

Archbishop Gaenswein’s book, in Piemme’s words, “contains a personal testimony of the greatness of a calm man, a superb scholar, a cardinal and a pope who changed the history of our time”

But it also claimed that a first-person account in the book will clarify some “misunderstood” facets of the pope and the workings of the Vatican.

Following the passing of the pope emeritus, a press release stated that, “today, after the death of the pope emeritus, the time has come for the current prefect of the papal household to tell his truth about the blatant calumnies and dark maneuvers that have tried in vain to cast shadows on the German pontiff’s magisterium and actions.”