(Vatican Monday. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI)
The appointment of Archbishop Georg Gänswein as nuncio to the Baltics closes a circle. Pope Francis had asked Benedict XVI’s former secretary to return to his diocese of Fribourg without assignment after announcing the termination of his role as prefect of the Papal Household. After a year and a half, Francis assigned Gänswein to a nunciature—a job Gänswein has never done—thereby getting Benedict’s man even further away from Rome. Based as it is in Vilnius, the nunciature to the Baltics may appear peripheral. It would be, if it weren’t for the fact that the Baltic countries now find themselves on the border with Russia and in close contact with the conflict in Ukraine. That probably has little to do with why Pope Francis sent Archbishop Gänswein there to be his ambassador. The first rumors about Gänswein’s appointment spoke of an act of mercy by Pope Francis. Francis, after having suffered Archbishop Gänswein’s accusations in a book published just after the death of Pope Emeritus and after having dismissed the archbishop, leaving him without office, would have decided to give him a new assignment and forgive him for his mistakes. But can Pope Francis’ decision be defined as an act of mercy, or was it instead an act of opportunity?