Pope Francis has ordered Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict XVI’s long-serving private secretary, to leave the Vatican by 1 July, a German newspaper has reported.
According to the report in the German daily newspaper "Welt", Pope Francis instructed the 66-year-old to leave Rome by July 1 at the latest and return to his home diocese of Freiburg, without assigning him a new role.
The decision, which is said to have been preceded by “a back and forth of several weeks”, was made on 19 May at an official private audience.
