The Pope’s powerful but reticent German personal secretary has emerged from the shadows to reveal that he is a former Pink Floyd fan whose Vatican postbag includes love letters from admirers.

Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, whose striking good looks and athletic physique have earned him the sobriquet “Gorgeous Georg”, has been constantly at the side of the German-born Benedict XVI since his election.

He controls access to the pontiff, most recently accompanying Benedict on his three-week summer break at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore in the mountains of northern Italy. But before the Pope returned to his summer residence at Castelgandolfo, south of Rome, at the weekend, Father Gaenswein – who turns 51 today – opened up to journalists.

For the first time he expressed political views, above all on the threat of “Islamisation”. Monsignor Gaenswein insisted that the speech had been “prophetic”, telling Süddeutsche Zeitung that “attempts to Islamise the West cannot be denied . . . The danger this poses for the identity of Europe should not be ignored out of a wrongly understood respect.”

But it is his more personal revelations that have set tongues wagging in Rome. Asked if he was aware that he had been described as a “ladykiller” and “the most handsome man in a soutane”, he said he was “a bit irritated” but also “flattered”.

He admitted that he received love letters. “I have two sisters and several cousins who helped me to have no problems with the female sex. I grew up completely normal, entirely without hang-ups.” He had never had a “steady relationship” but rather “a few smaller, romantic youthful friendships”.

He said that some fellow clerics in the Vatican were envious. “There is chatter in the papal court, but also arrows that are aimed at me consciously. I had to learn how to handle that.”

Asked if he was “born to be wild”, Father Gaenswein, the eldest of five children of a blacksmith in the Black Forest, replied: “At times maybe, between 15 and 18. I listened to Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd and some others, among them the Beatles. I had pretty long curly hair then, which my father didn’t like, so there were fights at times about going to the barber.”

He said that he was “never very political” but more interested in football, tennis and skiing, and had wanted to be a stockbroker. “My idea was that there was a lot of money being made and that you had to be bright and fast.” He later thought, “OK, if I can do all that and have money – what then? Suddenly, existential questions took centre stage.”

He denied that he kept the Pope in a “golden cage”. “That’s nonsense. Every morning there are private audiences, in the afternoon meetings with his closest aides – six days a week. Golden cage? Hah!”

Read the interview in full: Sueddeutsche Zeitung and in full translation by Gerald Augustinus.

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