“The Trial” Against Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, once number four in the Vatican Secretariat of State, right-hand man of the head of government of the Vatican State and ambassador of the Holy See to the USA, could be expelled from the Church in a few days.

(Rome) The Holy See, specifically the Dicastery of the Faith, has initiated “extrajudicial criminal proceedings” against Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò, titular archbishop of Ulpiana and former apostolic nuncio.  The archbishop himself announced this on June 20th.  The high-ranking Vatican diplomat was already one of the few among the previous popes who not only recognized problems, but also wanted to tackle and solve them.  This not only brought him friends, but now also a criminal case.  And the verdict seems to have already been written.

In Rome, outside the papal court, the Lombard is generally given a very good reputation.  He is described by those who have dealt with him as fundamentally honest, who, even during his time as Secretary General of the Governorate of the State of Vatican City from 2009 to 2011, did not close his eyes to deficiencies but wanted to eliminate them.  If there is something to criticize about Msgr. Viganò, it is his intolerance.  This, it is now said, has probably gotten in his way in recent years.  He is quick to point out not just a problem, but also its cause.  Not many people like that, especially not in an environment designed for harmony.

The result was that in 2011 the highly intelligent top diplomat was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to the USA by Pope Benedict XVI for the sake of peace in the Vatican City, undoubtedly the most prestigious and influential of all diplomatic positions.  Undoubtedly an award for the Monsignor, who was born in Varese, although he - not entirely wrongly - saw it as a promotion when he believed he had recognized and targeted some corrupt machinations.

In the USA, the conservative majority in the episcopate found support in him, which escalated into open conflict with Pope Francis.  When Francis traveled to the USA in 2015 to celebrate joining forces with the left-wing “messiah” Barack Obama, his own nuncio thwarted his plans by, at the request of US bishops, choosing Kim Davis, the symbol against the homosexual agenda at the time  - was smuggled into the Pope's audience schedule.  The Pope's confidants organized the visit in a politically correct manner down to the last detail.  However, Viganò's “complicity” made the coup possible, with which leading US bishops wanted to voice their concerns.  The contrast was “perfect”: Up in the state hall, Francis officially met with a gay couple for press photos with a broad smile, down in the basement the unsuspecting pontiff met with Kim Davis, who had been imprisoned in Obama’s empire because she was a registrar who had refused to register a “gay marriage”.  The Vatican press officials, who were not prepared for this, panicked and worsened the damage to their image by first denying the encounter and then having to admit it.  Nobody could have planned something like that, but Nuncio Viganò must have hoped for it a little, because after all he knew the Vatican apparatus and its workings down to the last detail.

Santa Marta's anger quickly turned against him, the Pope's official representative in Washington, and so the retaliation was not long in coming.  Msgr. Viganò was shortly afterwards retired at the age of 75.  When he returned to Italy, things initially remained quiet until the summer of 2018, when the unthinkable briefly seemed conceivable: a possible resignation of Pope Francis.

The McCarrick case and the demand for Pope Francis to resign

It was the bergoglio-friendly New York Times that, in the midst of the Trump era, resorted to weakening the Catholic Church in the USA and, in doing so, let the elderly “liberal” (left-wing) Cardinal Theodore McCarrick jump on his sword.  The target was not Pope Francis in Rome, but the attack was almost fatal for him.  Archbishop Viganò wanted to make sure of that.

The Holy See was completely surprised by McCarrick's homo-pederastic double life.  [Doubt] Then Msgr. Viganò exposed Pope Francis to the whole world as a liar and hypocrite by revealing that in June 2013, during his inaugural visit to the new Pope, he had informed him in detail about McCarrick.  The only option the Vatican could take was to stammer that Francis “couldn’t remember” and didn’t listen carefully because he had to receive Church representatives and nuncios from all over the world on the assembly line at the time.  That was pathetic and quite unbelievable, precisely because Francis, the “politician on the papal throne”, is very sensitive to both the personal weaknesses of others and in political matters - after all, it was about the USA and after all about a cardinal.

Within the Church, however, no one dared to pick up the ball that Archbishop Viganò had put into play.  If anything, the work should be done by others: the secular media.  But they didn't.  The overthrow of Francis did not fit into their planning.  No order was given for this.  So, with the help of media silence, the highly embarrassing matter was swept under the rug as quickly as possible, all lapses in memory were forgiven, all obvious hypocrisies were overlooked , and all contradictions were benevolently accepted.  It didn't help that McCarrick wasn't an isolated case, but that Francis had protected or brought into office a long list of high-ranking corrupt prelates with homosexual double lives.  The mainstream, including the New York Times, was interested in weakening the conservatives in the USA, not in an early end to the office of the very pope who is closer to the globalist establishment than any pope before him.  End of the story.

Archbishop Viganò had held his head; no one had to pressure him to do so, not even Marco Tosatti, who had met with him for lunch at which the initiative was developed.  Msgr. Viganò had recognized the opportunity, knew that he had enough explosives on hand and saw a need to free the Church from its ruling pope.  A daring step, but it didn't work out.  The counter-church forces that wanted to hold on to Francis as pope were stronger.  And since there is no regular procedure in the Church for deposing a pope, the pontiff faced no realistic danger from this side anyway.

Monsignor Viganò was left alone and, as he explained, felt compelled to go underground in order to avoid the Pope's longa manus.  At the beginning of 2020 he appeared in Munich, unrecognized by most, when there was a protest against the synodal German special path in front of the Feldherrenhalle.  At that time, traditional forces that often acted in a solitary manner seemed to come together as one.

But things also turned out differently.  With the emergence of Covid-19, the unity we had just found fell apart again.  Some believed the official narrative of the “deadly” global pandemic, from which only Bill Gates knew the emergency exit, which rhymed with mRNA vaccination (no other vaccination).  The others saw the dangers of a gigantic coup from above, attempted by activating irrational fears.

Archbishop Viganò, although at 80 years old he was supposedly at high risk according to the official narrative, sided with the warners who spoke of camouflage, that Corona was just a pretext to achieve completely different goals.  In the following years, his video messages became an important international reference point for resistance against repressive Corona measures.  He never did so without forgetting his missionary and pastoral mandate.  He saw his actions as part of a larger spiritual battle.  In keeping with his character, he leaned far out of the window and did so in his own clear language, because he declared that he saw a handwriting behind the events, that of the Deep State, a “deep state” that controls the state  He uses the means of power to push through his agenda in a non-transparent manner and without democratic legitimacy.  This also included the “stolen” re-election of Donald Trump in autumn 2020.

However, large-scale election fraud could not be proven in court (this would delegitimize democracy itself).  This made it easier for critics from different directions to doubt Viganò's authority and to distance themselves.  The accusation that Viganò was a conspiracy theorist, a favorite term for discrediting opponents, was encouraged by ideological fighting tools such as Wikipedia.

Rumors were spread against Viganò, the provenance of which was not always clear.  Some of them came from opponents within the Church, some of them came from the circle of those with whom he had just allied himself shortly before Corona.  Above all, the question has recently become increasingly louder as to whether the Archbishop still recognizes Francis as the legitimate pope.  But in this regard it was clear in Rome that the former nuncio stayed away from sedevacantist positions.  Last year, he soberly stated to those who were pushing for Sedevacantist positions that there is no authority that could clarify a question of legality, which is why there is “no human solution.” 

 Did Archbishop Viganò allow himself to be “consecrated”?

But then Santa Marta suddenly saw an opportunity to knock out the unwelcome critic when on January 12, 2024, in the midst of reports of the worldwide opposition to the Roman document Fiducia supplicans, with which homosexuals  Blessings were allowed, while the news was spread that Viganò had been partially “re-consecrated” as bishop.  This consecration was carried out, horribile dictu, by Bishop Richard Williamson, who was expelled from the SSPX in 2012 and who incurred excommunication in 2015 through the unauthorized consecration of bishops.  Williamson has already been declared a conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier by the media in the past, which is why an easy game seemed to be opening up.  With the news, the question now arose as to whether Msgr. Viganò considered his episcopal ordination, which had been bestowed on him by Pope John Paul II on April 26, 1992, to be invalid, along with all the other questions that ensued.

Archbishop Viganò has not yet confirmed a subsequent consecration.  It also seems unlikely because Williamson said nothing about it in his weekly commentaries at the time of the alleged consecration, but rather dealt with the question of whether Viganò was a Sedevacantist, which Williamson admittedly denied;  but he urged Viganò to recognize the real “evil” of the Church crisis, the Second Vatican Council.  The former nuncio actually increasingly agreed with this criticism.

However, if such a consecration had taken place, by whomever, the former nuncio would have incurred excommunication latae sententiae and provided Rome with an opportunity to get rid of the annoying critic.  Rome would only have to declare the excommunication that has occurred, not for the sake of the matter, since the facts stand alone, but for the sake of publicity, in order to declare to the whole world that the archbishop and best-known critic of Francis no longer belongs to the Catholic Church.

Is Viganò's criticism of Pope Francis' administration and the Second Vatican Council justified and legitimate (the questions about the Deep State, the Corona dictatorship and the WEF's power plans have no role to play for the Church), or has the former top diplomat radicalized beyond measure in his antipathy to the current pontificate?  Does he put his finger in an open wound or does he first open one?  Was it just his language towards Pope Francis that was occasionally too caustic and frightened pious Catholics?

There is a great danger that this question will not be discussed because there is no interest in such a discussion.  Msgr. Viganò has an interest in one, but not Santa Marta.  However, the Church as a whole should certainly have an interest in this, because it is a matter of clarifying whether the archbishop is expressing justified criticism or which part of his criticism is justified and which may go beyond that.  The believers and the hierarchs need this orientation.

The formalistic way of establishing the excommunication that has occurred through unauthorized episcopal ordinations or questioning the post-conciliar authority is the easiest way to get rid of the matter and avoid a public discussion.  Rome obviously wants to take this route by initiating an “extrajudicial criminal procedure” against Archbishop Viganò on June 11th.  The corresponding communication to the Archbishop was made by Msgr. Anthony Kennedy, head of the disciplinary department of the Dicastery.

This process began earlier, and everything points to Serena Sartini's article at the beginning of the year as a starting point.  Everything was then prepared and on May 10th the general assembly of the Dicastery of Faith gave the green light to prosecute the archbishop.

The legal basis

The procedure follows Canon 1364 of the Codex Iuris Canonici:

 § 1 The apostate, the heretic or the schismatic incurs excommunication as a punishment, without prejudice to the provision of can.  194 § 1, n. 2;  in addition, he may be subject to penalties in accordance with can.  1336 §§ 2–4 must be taken.

 § 2. If persistent insubordination or the seriousness of the offense so require, further punishments may be added, not excluding dismissal from the clergy.

 Specifically, Archbishop Viganò is accused of schism.  The reasons for this are “public statements”.  He questions the legitimacy of Pope Francis, is no longer in unity with him and rejects the Second Vatican Council.  According to Canon 1717, a preliminary investigation is dispensed with:

 § 1. If the Ordinary receives at least probable knowledge that a crime has been committed, he should carefully inquire about the facts of the crime, the detailed circumstances and the criminal liability himself or through another suitable person, unless this appears to be completely unnecessary  .

In his first statement on the proceedings, on June 20, Msgr. Viganò, alluding to this unusual procedure, stated:

 “I assume that the conviction has already been determined, given that the proceedings will take place out of court.”

Above all, the shortened procedure, which can only be viewed to a limited extent as an ordinary procedure, is cited by Archbishop Viganò as a reason why Santa Marta does not intend a fair trial.

Archbishop Viganò's reaction

Regarding the allegations themselves, he wrote:

 “The Council represents the ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer of which the Bergoglian ‘synodal church’ is the necessary metastasis.”

We document Archbishop Viganò's entire further statement as a contemporary document:

 “The episcopate, the clergy and the people of God must seriously ask themselves whether it is consistent with the profession of the Catholic faith to stand idly by and watch the systematic destruction of the Church by its leadership, just as others destroy civil society.

 Globalism calls for ethnic exchange: Bergoglio promotes uncontrolled immigration and calls for the integration of cultures and religions.

Globalism supports LGBTQ+ ideology: Bergoglio authorizes the blessing of same-sex couples and forces acceptance of homosexuality on believers, while covering up the scandals of his protégés and promoting them to the highest leadership positions.

Globalism imposes the green agenda: Bergoglio worships the idol Pachamama, writes insane encyclicals about the environment, supports Agenda 2030 and attacks those who question the theory of man-made global warming.

In questions that concern exclusively science, he steps out of his role, but always in a direction diametrically opposed to what the Church has always taught.  He has mandated the use of experimental genes that have caused severe harm, death and infertility, calling them an 'act of love' in exchange for funding from the pharmaceutical industry and philanthropic foundations.

The complete conformity to the religion of Davos is scandalous.  Wherever governments in the service of the World Economic Forum introduced or expanded abortion, promoted vice, legitimized same-sex unions or gender reassignment, promoted euthanasia and condoned the persecution of Catholics, not a word was said in defense of threatened faith or morals, in support of the  lost in the civil society struggles of so many Catholics abandoned by the Vatican and the bishops.

Not a word for the persecuted Catholics in China, with the Holy See as an accomplice, for whom Beijing's billions are more important than the lives and freedom of thousands of Chinese believers in the Roman Church.

A schism is not seen in the “synodal church” led by Bergoglio, either on the part of the German episcopate or on the part of the government bishops who were ordained in China without a mandate from Rome.  Because their actions correspond to the destruction of the church, they must be hidden, trivialized, tolerated and ultimately encouraged.

 In these eleven years of “pontificate”, the Catholic Church has been humiliated and discredited, mainly because of the scandals and corruption in the highest echelons of the hierarchy, which were completely ignored during the most ruthless authoritarianism of the Vatican against faithful priests and religious, small communities  traditional religious women and communities associated with the Latin Mass.”

Archbishop Viganò went further in his analysis:

“This one-sided zeal is reminiscent of Cromwell's fanaticism and is typical of those who defy Providence, assuming that they are finally at the top of the hierarchical pyramid and can do whatever they want without anyone doing anything who would be against it.  And this work of destruction, this willingness to renounce the salvation of souls in the name of a human peace that denies God, is not an invention of Bergoglio, but the main (and unspoken) aim of those who used a council to serve the Catholic  to contradict the Magisterium and destroy the Church from within, in small steps, but always in one direction, always with indulgent toleration or culpable inaction, if not with the express approval of the Roman authorities.  The Catholic Church was slowly but surely occupied, and Bergoglio was given the task of transforming it into a philanthropic agency, the 'Church of Humanity, Integration and the Environment' in the service of the New World Order.  But that's not the Catholic Church: it's its counterfeit.

Benedict XVI's renunciation  and the appointment of a successor in line with the 2030 Agenda by the St. Gallen Mafia should make it possible – and has made it possible – to control the global coup with the complicity and authority of the Roman Church.  Bergoglio is to the Church what other heads of state are to their nations: traitors, subversives, final liquidators of traditional society, confident of their impunity.  The vitium consensus of Bergoglio, who accepted the election, is based precisely on the obvious alienation of his government and official actions from what every Catholic of all ages expects from the Vicar of Christ and the successor of the Prince of the Apostles.  Everything Bergoglio does is an insult and a provocation to the entire Catholic Church, to its saints of all times, to the martyrs killed in the Odium Fidei, to the popes of all times up to the Second Vatican Council.

It is also and above all an insult to the Divine Head of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose holy authority Bergoglio exercises to the detriment of the Mystical Body, with an approach that is too systematic and consistent to be the result of mere incompetence.  In the work of Bergoglio and his circle, the Lord's warning is realized: 'Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the form of lambs, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves' (Mt 7:15).  With them I have the honor of not having or wanting any ecclesial communion: they are a lobby that disguises their complicity with the masters of the world in order to deceive as many souls and prevent any resistance to the establishment of the empire of the Antichrist.

In the face of the accusations of the Dicastry, I, as Successor of the Apostles, claim full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, with the magisterium of the Roman Pontiffs and with the unbroken doctrinal, moral and liturgical tradition which they have faithfully preserved.

I reject the neo-modernist errors inherent in the Second Vatican Council and the so-called “post-conciliar magisterium”, especially in questions of collegiality, ecumenism, religious freedom, the secularity of the state and the liturgy.

I reject the scandals, errors and heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who demonstrates an absolutely tyrannical exercise of power directed against the goal that legitimizes authority in the Church: an authority representative of the authority of Christ and  as such only has to obey him.  This separation of the papacy from its legitimating principle, which is Christ the Pope, transforms the ministry into a self-centered tyranny.

No Catholic worthy of the name can be in communion with this 'Bergoglian Church', because it acts in blatant contradiction and rupture with all the popes in history and with the Church of Christ.

Fifty years ago, in the same Holy Office Palace, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was summoned and accused of schism for rejecting the Second Vatican Council.  His defense is mine, his words are mine, his arguments are mine, before which the Roman authorities could not convict him of heresy because they had to wait for him to consecrate bishops in order to have an excuse to make him a schismatic  to declare and lift his excommunication when he was already dead.  The pattern repeats itself even after ten chandeliers [50 years] confirmed the prophetic election of Bishop Lefebvre.

In these times of apostasy, Catholics find in the pastors who remain faithful to the commission received from our Lord an example and an encouragement to remain in the truth of Christ.

Depositum custodi, according to the Apostle's exhortation: As the time draws near when I must give an account of all my deeds to the Son of God, I intend to continue in bonum certamen and not to fail in the witness of faith which is required of one,  who, as bishop, is endowed with the fullness of the priesthood and appointed successor to the apostles.

I invite all Catholics to pray that the Lord will come to the aid of his Church and give courage to those who are persecuted for their faith.

 + Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

 June 20, 2024

 Sancti Silverii Papæ et Martyris

 Beati Dermitii O'Hurley, Episcopi et Martyris

Aldo Maria Valli: “The Archbishop is being pilloried in the media”

The archbishop was scheduled to appear at the Holy Office in Rome on June 20 at 3:30 p.m.  If he does not appear, he must submit a written defense by June 28th.  Otherwise he will be judged in absentia.  However, Msgr. Viganò made it clear that he would not defend himself because he did not recognize the authority of his judges:

 “I emphasize that I have not gone to the Vatican, that I have no intention of going to the Holy Office on June 28, and that I do not respect the Dicastery, whose authority I do not recognize, neither that of its Prefect nor that of those, who appointed him, did not hand over any memorandum or document in my defense.

I have no intention of submitting myself to a sham trial in which those who are supposed to judge me impartially in defense of Catholic orthodoxy are at the same time those whom I accuse of heresy, treason and abuse of power.”

Aldo Maria Valli, for many years the chief Vaticanist for the Italian state television RAI 1, wrote about the reactions of the mainstream media to the news of the criminal proceedings against Archbishop Viganò:

 “Reading the articles that the major newspapers are devoting in these hours to the affair of Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò requires an iron stomach, but is also instructive.  Through a slew of innuendos and untruths, the monsignor is effectively portrayed as a conspiracy theorist, a careerist, and ultimately a raving lunatic.  Not that I would have expected anything different from a press subject to EEE (the only permitted unified thinking), but at least a little modesty!  At least a minimal attempt to reconstruct the facts.  At least some semblance of objectivity.  Instead we experience the media pillory.  And the more ignorant and superficial the authors of the articles are, the more persistent the call for pillorying.  I feel completely alienated from this information system (it would be better to call it a disinformation factory).”

The media pillory means that a negative judgment against a person or organization has already been determined in advance and that the “convicted” are judged using all the dialectical tricks and little seriousness.  This is a show trial.  In the past few days it has been repeated many times that the Vatican had been so “generous” with Archbishop Viganò and had allowed him to criticize the Pope for a long time.  But this isn't about lese majeste, it's about right or wrong.  Is the criticism of the current church leader justified or is it not?

Archbishop Viganò could have remained silent, as many others in the Church do.  You now see yourself confirmed.  According to a former close colleague of the archbishop, prudence sometimes dictates waiting.  That sounds as if it means: Pope Francis will soon step down anyway, until then it is important to hold on and avoid confrontations.  A confirmed excommunication does not just mean being in the pillory.  Getting rid of them requires time and special circumstances, in short, Rome's willingness to do so.  The four bishops of the SSPX, consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, now referred to by Archbishop Viganò, experienced it.  It was not until 2009 that their excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI.  The fact that they themselves had never recognized this did not matter to Rome.

However, on June 21st, the Society of St. Pius X distanced itself from Archbishop Viganò because he did not recognize Francis' authority as pope.  Not because he doesn't think the election was legal, but because he makes a reservation about reproaching Francis for accepting his office as pope after the election, but without the actual intention of exercising this office as pope. 

The question is complex because it affects the internal forum.  How and who should clarify this question?  In any case, the Society declared that it had never represented such a position:

 “On this point, neither Msgr. Lefebvre nor the fraternity he founded were prepared to get involved.”

Archbishop Viganò could soon have one thing in common with Archbishop Lefebvre.  Msgr. Lefebvre died in 1991 under a state of excommunication.  The 83-year-old Msgr. Viganò is likely to follow him.

Archbishop Viganò responded to an interview request from Katholisches.info with a request for leniency if he currently, "during the ongoing 'process'", considers it wiser to forgo such.

In the end, is it intolerance that drove Archbishop Viganò into the corner where Santa Marta wanted him?  Will his arguments, beyond the formal question of papal authority, also be pilloried? 

Since June 28th was given as an ultimatum by the Dicastery of Faith, an answer can be expected soon.  The bridges seem to have been burned, since Monsignor Viganò himself said: "If I am declared separated by schism from this 'Church', I make this a source of honor and pride for myself."

 Text: Giuseppe Nardi

 Image: Vatican.va/Facebook (screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG