Pope Leo XIV received Archbishop Georg Gänswein, apostolic nuncio to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and for nearly two decades personal secretary to Benedict XVI, in audience this Saturday. The Holy See Press Office reported the meeting without providing further details about its content.
This marks the third known audience between the Pontiff and the German prelate since the beginning of the current pontificate, following the first public meeting during the nuncios’ gathering in June 2025 and the private audience granted by Leo XIV in mid-December of that same year.
Gänswein, who turned 70 last July, has served since June 2024 as the Holy See’s representative to the three Baltic republics, based in Vilnius. The appointment ended a year without any assignment in his home archdiocese of Freiburg, where Pope Francis had sent him a few months after Benedict XVI’s death, after already relieving him of his duties as Prefect of the Pontifical Household in 2020.
Speculation about his future
The audience comes amid renewed speculation about the archbishop’s future. In recent weeks, there has been talk of a possible transfer to the apostolic nunciature in Paris, a possibility that Gänswein himself declined to confirm at the end of July during a public event in Ravensburg (Germany).
The prelate has also recently spoken out in the debate over the ancient form of the Latin Mass, advocating for a more tolerant line from the Holy See toward the faithful attached to the traditional liturgy.
Alignment with the current pontificate
Gänswein has not hidden his positive assessment of Leo XIV’s pontificate. In January, he told EWTN that “normality is gradually returning” to the Vatican, and in July, in an interview with Katholisch.de on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he described the Pope as “a prudent and intelligent man” who “sees problems, takes them seriously and acts,” in reference to the difficulties that arose “during the previous pontificate.”
Regarding the content of Saturday’s audience, it is interpreted in Rome as part of the ordinary activity of a nuncio, which includes periodic meetings with the Pontiff on the situation of the Church in the countries to which he is accredited, without ruling out that his possible future assignment may also have been discussed.