The long-time personal aide to Benedict XVI has said the retired pope had hoped to stay in the papacy until 2014 but resigned a year earlier because of the World Cup.
Mgr Georg Gaenswein's comments about Benedict, who stunned the world in February 2013 by announcing he would be the first pontiff in 600 years to resign, came in a speech the aide gave in Munich last month.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera carried excerpts on Sunday from the speech, which was delivered when Mgr Gaenswein presented The Last Conversations, a book based on interviews with Benedict XVI by German journalist Peter Seewald.
