Seewald interviews Mgr Gänswein

Many thanks to Gerald Augustinus who has done us all a great service by translating an interview which Mgr Gänswein gave to Peter Seewald for Sueddeutsche Zeitung. As he says, "it is one of the most interesting insider interviews you'll come across."

I was very impressed by this exchange in which Seewald tried hard to put Mgr Gänswein on the back foot:
PS: A quote from one of your homilies, on the occasion of some ordinations: "You are granted to know that you have a dignity that distinguishes you from all who aren't priests. You are allowed to have the consciousness that you are doing something great, that you are allowed to do something great." Pretty aloof.

MG: I'd say that again without ifs ands or buts.

PS: You take it seriously.

MG: Yes, I do.

PS: It also sounds a bit romantic.

MG: I don't think so. They are words that were made true by life, and life wasn't romantic. The sentences quoted by you may sound a bit ceremonious on paper but behind them there is a lot of personal experience and I did not want to keep it from the new priests that there is something grand ahead of him, that it costs something and that he has to be willing to pay that price.

PS: In 1984 you were ordained a priest, then you spent two years in the Black Forest. In 1993, you wrote your dissertation in Munich, about "Ecclesiology according to the Second Vatican Council." Did you have moments of great doubt ?
See the full text at: The Cafeteria is Closed:The interview with Msgr. Gaenswein

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