The Tiber flows back into the Rhine or the complete collapse of German power in the Vatican

For several years there was German supremacy: Joseph Ratzinger, alias Pope Benedict XVI, had established an influential network in Rome.  Now this system is collapsing - and the former Pope can hardly hope for support.  The relationship with Pope Francis seems to have broken down.

The downfall of the German supremacy in the Vatican is observed every morning by many.  It is quiet at St Peter's this winter, unusually quiet.  The pandemic has silenced St Peter's Square.  The otherwise usual background noise of pilgrims streaming to St Peter's does not disturb the peace in the Vatican at the moment.

It is still dark when the man who for many has become the symbol of the downfall of the Germans in the Vatican leaves his flat.  It is Archbishop Georg Gänswein, whom Pope Francis fired as Prefect of the Papal Household in January 2020 - Gänswein, the once all-powerful German in the control centre of power.  He leaves his flat in the complex jokingly called "Old Santa Marta" in the Vatican.  It is an apartment block next to the audience hall that bears the name of Pope Paul VI.  The Archbishop has to cross the square in front of the complex of the new Santa Marta building, the guest house where Pope Francis lives.

All those who now rule there have experienced German supremacy - and from which many suffered.  For decades, from 1981 to 2005, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, ruled the Catholic world with an iron fist.  And he bullied the friends of today's Pope Francis, almost all of whom supported liberation theology.  Then Ratzinger rose to become Pope and the Vatican experienced an impressive abundance of German ecclesiastical power.

Alongside Pope Ratzinger (German), Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller (German) rose to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  Walter Kasper (German) was in charge of the dialogue with the other Christian churches and Judaism.  Cardinal Josef Cordes (German) was in charge of social issues, and the historian, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller (German) supported the conservative front.

Gloating about the collapse of power

When Gänswein now makes his way to the Mater Ecclesia monastery, where Ratzinger lives, and walks past the Santa Marta house and the Vatican petrol station towards the Vatican gendarmerie building, he is well aware that many are watching him.  Some with malice in view of the collapse of German power in the Vatican.

At present, only one bishop from Germany holds an active office in a Papal department, and that is Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst, of all people.  Chased out of his home Diocese of Limburg in disgrace, Tebartz-van Elst really does not serve as a glorious representative of German ecclesiastical tradition, especially since he does not even have a clearly defined task in the Vatican.

Besides him, there is only Father Markus Graulich in the Department of Legislative Texts, Udo Breitbach at the Congregation of Bishops and the Secretary of the Commission for Religious Relations with Judaism, Father Norbert Hoffmann.  That's it.  No German can intervene in the debacle currently being experienced by Ratzinger, who is derisively called "the Emeritus" in the Vatican, because there is no one left.

In an independent report on cases of abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, Ratzinger was heavily incriminated a few weeks ago.  As Archbishop of Munich (1977-1982), he is said not to have taken sufficient action against abusers in four cases.  First, Ratzinger denied having been present at a decisive meeting.  Somewhat later, a letter followed in which he declared that he had attended the meeting after all.  Later, he asked for an apology for the abuse cases - according to unanimous opinion, half-heartedly at best.

As I said: a debacle.

The crisis surrounding Ratzinger is now being managed by other people.  First and foremost, the Church's most powerful media man, Andrea Tornielli.  The personal friend of Pope Francis hardly has time for his family in Milan, because one crisis meeting in the Ratzinger case follows the other in the Vatican.  Tornielli himself was a journalist in the Papal entourage for decades and is friends with colleagues from the old days.  Normally he is always ready to help out with background information.  Unless the matter is really hot.  Then he limits himself to saying that it is simply too "delicato" to even talk about it in confidence.  Since the Vatican Press Department does not say anything at all without Tornielli wanting it, no clarification in the Ratzinger affair can be expected from there at the moment.

But how could the debacle surrounding Ratzinger have come about in the first place?  Why did the German clique pretend that it was still a power that could deal with the authorities as it was used to doing in the world's last absolutist elective monarchy, the Vatican?  Why were statements and documents that went to Germany not co-ordinated with Pope Francis and his apparatus?

What particularly upsets the Vatican Secretariat of State is the way in which Gänswein rowed back with a letter.  In it, Ratzinger corrects the statement that he had not known about the cases of abuse.  It is said that it was an editorial error.  Everyone in the Vatican knows the accounts of Ratzinger's staff in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  He had all the really important texts submitted to him again and again, proofread, evaluated and re-submitted.  In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger was notorious for arguing over every comma.  The fact that an editorial error could have occurred in his environment in such an important matter is considered unbelievable by those responsible in the Secretariat of State.

Meanwhile, the men who belong to the pitiful remnant of German power in the Vatican are trying to save what can be saved.  Old Ratzinger henchmen are desperately trying to get one of the oldest enemies of the "emeritus", Cardinal Walter Kasper, of all people, on their side.  Although he is back home after a serious operation, he has the habit of turning off his mobile phone in his flat and switching on his fax if he does not want to be disturbed.  So he is difficult to reach at the moment.

Ratzinger once belittled Cardinal Kasper

The Cardinal is still one of the heavyweights in the Vatican, Pope Francis holds him in high esteem.  But the insults Ratzinger inflicted on Kasper have probably never really healed.  The head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith belittled the former bishop of Stuttgart after his arrival in Rome in 1999 - as not Catholic, as someone who does not represent the doctrine of the Catholic Church.  Kasper has probably forgiven that, but certainly not forgotten it.  It is considered unlikely that he will protectively place himself before Ratzinger.

When Georg Gänswein climbs the last stretch of the road to Ratzinger's monastery, he passes the Vatican prison.  Among other things, Gänswein's statements landed the Pope's valet in a cell in this prison in the so-called Vatileaks scandal in 2012.  Gänswein managed the Vatileaks affair and became so accustomed to power at the time that his critics never forgave him for what happened when he left the Papal flat with Joseph Ratzinger after the latter's resignation: he wept, saddened by the loss of power.  At least that is how many in the Vatican see it.

After their resignation, the only place left for the Gänswein/Ratzinger team is the Mater Ecclesiae monastery.  For months now, however, visitors have had difficulty understanding what the "emeritus" says.  A delegation of a large German food producer complained that Gänswein now has to "translate" the Pope's words.  It is no longer understandable for a normal listener what the Pope says.  "Joseph Ratzinger can concentrate for about thirty minutes, his eyes fall shut every now and then, but he understands everything.  He still reads and writes, informs himself about new theological books and also orders them.  There is no doubt that he understands what is happening around him," a visitor who was with Ratzinger in December told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland.

So did Ratzinger deliberately tell the untruth about the abuse cases in his old Diocese?  And did he only remember to tell the truth when the Munich expert report put facts on the table?  Or did the advisors around Gänswein and his close friends from Santa Croce University, which belongs to the Opus Dei personal prelature, urge the former Pope to tell the untruth?  And did they - frightened at being caught - row back with later explanations?

That Pope Francis could stand by his predecessor is considered extremely unlikely in the Vatican.  Anyone who had the slightest doubt that the relationship between Pope Francis and his resigned predecessor had been completely fractured for years could convince themselves of the opposite a few months ago.  A Pope in the best of moods had presented an award to two journalists from the papal press corps. Francis joked, took a lot of time, seemed to be in good spirits.  Immediately afterwards, he was to present the Joseph Ratzinger Prize.  The assembled laureates saw a Pope whose mood deteriorated in a flash and in such a conspicuous way that it was no longer possible to speak of a cheerful award ceremony.  Francis was downright rough with Ratzinger's friends.

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