A Pair of Popes

Now here’s something you don’t see every day: two popes chatting.

Yesterday, the two Popes – the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis now gloriously reigning – met for lunch at Castel Gandolfo. They went to pray together in the private chapel there, and

…the Pope emeritus offered the place of honor to Pope Francis, but he said: “We are brothers,” and wanted them to kneel together in the same pew.

(source)

So they prayed side by side, while the Papal chair and kneeler in front of the altar remained empty.

The two then met for about an hour or so before Pope Francis returned to the Vatican. One can only imagine what the two men discussed.

In the video, Pope Benedict looks heart-breakingly weak and frail. I was baptized in 2005, so he has really been my only Holy Father. I love and miss him so very much.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, remains Pope Benedict’s private secretary while simultaneously serving as Prefect of the Pontifical Household for Pope Francis. It’s an open secret that ++Gänswein serves as a go-between for the two Popes. There is little doubt in my mind that he will figure prominently in the coming “cleansing of the temple” of the Curia.