Benedict XVI’s private papers will be, or perhaps have already been, destroyed. His secretary, Msgr. Georg Gaenswein, states that this was Ratzinger’s will which he entrusted to him. The Pope emeritus himself would have left a black and white disposition to this effect: “Private sheets of all kinds must be destroyed. This applies without exception and without loopholes.” As stated by Gaenswein himself in the book “Nient’altro che la Verità” (Piemme), “I received precise instructions from him, with delivery indications that I feel obliged in conscience to respect, relating to his library, to the manuscripts of his books, documents relating to the Council and correspondence”.
Gaenswein also reveals that, in addition to the spiritual testament which was also published by the Vatican, Ratzinger also left “notes relating to some bequests and personal gifts, for the fulfillment of which I am the executor, have been gradually updated over the years, until the most recent addition in 2021″. It could be a material will with bequests relating to his book and music collections; Ganswein does not he specifies it but it is probable that a part of these few earthly goods held by the Pontiff emeritus could be destined for his beloved Bavaria.
Gaenswein’s book, co-written with the journalist Saverio Gaeta and which will be released next week (and of which various previews have come out in recent days), uncovers like a ‘Pandora’s box’ many of the episodes of the last Vatican decades still wrapped in mystery. He also talks about the case of Emanuela Orlandi, the girl who disappeared into thin air in 1983 and that in just a few days he would be 55 years old. “I have never compiled anything on the Orlandi case so this phantom dossier has never been disclosed solely because it does not exist”, says Ratzinger’s secretary. But the lawyer of the Orlandi family today let it be known: “I went to see him at the Prefecture of the Papal Household when he was still substantially exercising the munus of Prefect and it was he himself who told me, among other things, that there was, and how, a confidential dossier about Emanuela and that I should have insisted on having it delivered by the Secretariat of State.When I asked him to know its content, or at least some element of it, he reiterated that I should address my requests to the Secretariat of State.
I hope the pages of the book are clarifying”.
Source: Ansa
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