Because the boyfriend — Monsignor Hot Face, below — is oh so fuckable, that’s why.

Monsignor Georg Gänswein — Don Giorgio as he is known to Vatican watchers or, with a certain knowing wink, due to his handsome looks, beautiful Georg — is the pope’s personal secretary.

It is an envied and powerful post the studly monsignor has held since 2000 and that — as in the case of many a minor sexbomb thrust into the spotlight when she marries a megawatt superstar — took him out of the obscurity of his scholarly duties in a small German town and onto the international stage.

Now he is the man who holds the microphone to the man who rules the world — or at least the part of it that still bends the knee to Catholic doctrine, which holds that the pope is Christ’s kingly regent on earth, infallible and fully perfect in matters celestial.

A most ambitious post, that of personal secretary to a pope. The current pope, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, was himself the previous pope’s right-hand man, and though not a personal secretary, held the office of prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that is, the historical Inquisition.

As such, this pope has managed to be even darker in his homophobia than his predecessor. (A recent statement from the Council of American Bishops — that surely originated in the Vatican — warned gay Catholics to deny their homosexuality to all but close family and never make public statements in support of gay rights, under pain of hellfire.)

Ah yes, when they have to bring out the big guns — God, family, the flag — can a Ted Haggard comeuppance be that far off? But we digress:

The buzz is that beautiful Georg is pegged to become Archbishop of Munich, should the pope ever part with him. Which this pope is showing no signs of doing, forever looking to his secretary to hold his mike or his umbrella or who knows what else in the holy days ahead.

A dangerous companion, as any fame whore could tell the awful Benedict. For who can even see Pope Rat, when beautiful Georg is by his side? Georg who keeps up his tan and fine form with vigorous rounds of tennis? Whose very butch, very secular hobby is flying snazzy Cessnas?

The UK Guardian was the first to sound the gaydar last August:

As Benedict XVI trundled through the narrow streets of Cologne last week, many of his admirers found themselves distracted by the extravagantly handsome man sitting in the back of the Popemobile. The thousands of adoring young Catholics had come to Germany to get a glimpse of the new Pope, visiting his native country on his first trip abroad as pontiff. But they couldn’t help noticing the Pope’s new — and rather dishy — private secretary, Monsignor Georg Gänswein.

“As he jumped on to the Popemobile for the first time,” one German magazine remarked, “we women held our breath. There, where for the past 27 years the grim and pale Stanislaw Dziwisz had sat behind the Pope, a tall, blond, athletic young man had taken his place.”

Over the past four months, the Italian press has also swooned over the 49-year-old German priest, who is known in Italy as Don Giorgio.

In the grey and elderly world of the Vatican, it is hardly surprising that Gänswein — a keen tennis player and excellent skier who even has a pilot’s licence — has become the centre of attention. Last month, the Italian edition of Vanity Fair compared Gänswein to the actor George Clooney, while the magazine Chi opened that he was “as fascinating as Hugh Grant“.

Later in the piece, buried under a mountian of biographical detail, we find this telling gem:

Gänswein’s critics even accuse him of turning the Pope into a fashion victim.

This summer, Ratzinger and his secretary went on holiday to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, as well as to the Italian Alps at Valle D’Aosta. While both men were hiking in the hills, the Pope appeared in public wearing a Nike hat, designer Serengeti sunglasses and a Cartier watch.

“This is Gänswein’s style. It’s his handwriting,” one religious affairs writer said. “This is something I don’t understand.”

Last week, the New York Times, in its very gray lady manner, absolutely avoided the the topic that dare not speak its name.

Delicately, and not without a certain slight of hand, as if what they were really writing about were the gentle jokes the pope is subject to in the Italian press (leaving out the more inflammatory ones), they tiptoed up to the real issue behind all the titters:

What was it that made this odd couple — both of them stalwart foes of “intrinsically disordered” homosexuality (as Pope Rat had once so memorably put it) and advocates of lifelong priestly celibacy — so very odd indeed?

The Times merely let the photo, which we excerpted at top, speak volumes.

“Perhaps it is his good looks,” the Times wondered somewhat unbelievably, “or his work in the ever-so-serious Vatican, but for whatever reason, Msgr. Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict XVI’s secretary, has suddenly found himself the butt of jokes in the Italian news media.”

Whatever that some reason could be simply stumped the paper of record which quickly skited away from exploring the matter further.

It took Andrew Sullivan — ever a thorn in our side, the gay conservative we hate to love (but love him we do) — to nail what wasn’t even remotely jello to the wall. Why, he asked in a take-no-prisoners mood, does this pope surround himself unfailingly with beautiful men?

Wrote Sullivan:

The NYT runs a very curious article today about Italian humor about the current Pope. None of the jokes cited seem to me to be very risque or even funny. ..

Except of course for that photograph (see above). It shows the source of the actual jokes circulating in the Vatican and elsewhere about this Prada-preferring, Gucci-wearing, high-drama German intellectual.

The actual jokes — which the NYT won’t print — are about how good looking so many of the men are who surround Benedict, especially his personal assistant, Msgr. Georg Gänswein, shown holding the large phallic microphone in front of Benedict’s face. The Vatican gossip merchants call Georg “Gay-Org.” He is inseparable from Benedict. And he surely is easy on the eyes. There is no evidence that Benedict has ever broken his vows of chastity; but there is no evidence that he is heterosexual either.

Hence the gossip; hence the jokes. When you’re a Pope who declares that even closeted, chaste gay men cannot be priests, it’s pushing your luck to clothe yourself in Prada, bedeck your Pope-mobile with luxurious Natuzzi Italian white leather, and surround yourself with assistants who look like they strayed from the pages of L’Uomo Vogue.

That’s our Andrew! We always have to hold our breath a bit when we rely on Sullivan for a quote. Usually brilliant, always self-aggrandizing (but then the life of a professional pundit is a rough, competitive business), Sullivan is right-on when he opines on gay issues.

He is the author of The Conservative Soul, which because he broke early with the Bush administration over its efforts to legalize torture, is shunned by conservatives. He is also a true believer in Catholicism, yet at the same time a no-nonsense critic of its medieval thinking on human sexuality, particularly his (and our) own.

An odd bird then, who is neither a shill for the Republican Party nor a friend of bumper-sticker liberalism, Andrew Sullivan remains a man who thinks for himself. We knew he would have the very last word on the earth-shattering matter of beautiful Gay-org.