Pope Francis has appointed a longtime secretary of the late Pope Benedict XVI as the Vatican’s diplomatic representative to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
The Vatican announced in its daily bulletin on Monday that Archbishop Georg Ganswein was named the papal nuncio to the Baltic states.
The German-born Archbishop, 67, will replace Archbishop Petar Rajic, the Apostolic Nuncio to the Baltic states who ended the Holy See’s diplomatic service in March, at the Apostolic Nunciature in Vilnius.
Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013, the first pope to do it since the Middle Ages. He lived on the grounds of the Vatican until his death on December 31, 2022, aged 95.
Just one week after the funeral, Ganswein released a memoir revealing details of Benedict’s relationship with Francis, who took over as head of the Catholic Church in March 2013.
These details included concerns expressed by the conservative Benedict at some of the changes made by his liberal Argentine successor, notably the decision to restrict the use of the Latin mass.
Last year, Pope Francis sent Ganswein back to his home diocese of Freiburg in southwest Germany, in what was widely seen as a punishment.
The nomination is likely to be seen as a sign of appeasement after months of strains between Pope Francis and Ganswein.
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