The crux of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's indictment of Pope Francis comes toward the end of his Memorandum:
“Francis is abdicating the mandate which Christ gave to Peter to confirm the brethren. Indeed, by his action he has divided them, led them into error, and encouraged the wolves to continue to tear apart the sheep of Christ’s flock.”
The remedy he proposes for this intolerable situation is drastic, but logical if his claims are true: “In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”
The fact that Pope Francis refused to answer questions about Viganò’s charges on the flight back from the World Meeting of Families in Ireland is telling. How likely is it that an innocent man would let these multiple serious charges of malfeasance remain unanswered? Certainly possible, but highly unlikely. Notably, just the day before at Dublin Castle, Francis said:
With regard to the most vulnerable, I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education…The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — adequately to address these repellent crimes has rightly given rise to outrage, and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community. I myself share those sentiments…
My predecessor, Pope Benedict, spared no words in recognizing both the gravity of the situation and in demanding that “truly evangelical, just and effective” measures be taken in response to this betrayal of trust (cf. Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland, 10). His frank and decisive intervention continues to serve as an incentive for the efforts of the Church’s leadership both to remedy past mistakes and to adopt stringent norms meant to ensure that they do not happen again. More recently, in a Letter to the People of God, I reaffirmed the commitment, and the need for an even greater commitment, to eliminating this scourge in the Church, at any cost, moral and of suffering.
[Yet another example of the Bergoglio speechwriters' much-too-facile lip service to what is right and just and correct - even if so far, it has gone too little beyond pro forma lip service.]
In the letter from Pope Benedict XVI cited by Francis we read:
All of us are suffering as a result of the sins of our confreres who betrayed a sacred trust or failed to deal justly and responsibly with allegations of abuse… I know that many of you are disappointed, bewildered, and angered by the way these matters have been handled by some of your superiors. Yet, it is essential that you cooperate closely with those in authority and help to ensure that the measures adopted to respond to the crisis will be truly evangelical, just and effective.
Archbishop Viganò made plain that he too is “disappointed, bewildered and angered by the way these matters have been handled” by his superior, Pope Francis. When asked about this on the plane the pontiff replied:
I read the statement this morning, and I must tell you sincerely that, I must say this, to you and all those who are interested. Read the statement carefully and make your own judgment. I will not say a single word about this. I believe the statement speaks for itself. And you have the journalistic capacity to draw your own conclusions. It’s an act of faith. When some time passes and you have drawn your conclusions, I may speak. But, I would like your professional maturity to do the work for you. It will be good for you. That’s good...
How is it possible for Catholics to trust the supreme authority of the Church when that authority refuses to answer a fellow bishop's serious charges that the pope himself has done the very thing he previously condemned?
How can journalists or anyone else make fully informed conclusions about the truthfulness of what Viganò says when the one man who can affirm or deny those charges refuses to say a word, at least for now?
Recall what Francis said at Dublin Castle:
“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — adequately to address these repellent crimes has rightly given rise to outrage, and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community. I myself share those sentiments.”
The stunned outrage occasioned by Viganò’s allegations of papal malfeasance regarding the moral turpitude of ex-Cardinal McCarrick is unprecedented in my lifetime. McCarrick’s gross immorality and abuse of authority is a monumental “source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.” Even more stunning is Viganò’s account that Francis removed the penitential restrictions Benedict placed on McCarrick.
Only Francis can explain the truth or falsehood of Viganò’s account. Not to do so is to leave the entire Church, and especially McCarrick's victims, with the impression that it does not matter that he was a predatory sex offender; he’s the pope’s friend, he is unaccountable, nothing and no one else matters.
One great lesson of this scandal is that inflicting private and unpublicized penalties for grave offenses against chastity on “important” clerics is a huge mistake. [I frankly cannot find any rational reason why the sanctions against McCarrick were not made public!] When Benedict found McCarrick to be guilty as charged, the rest of the Church should have been told. McCarrick would not then have been able to pretend he was under no censure. Any violation of the terms of his punishment would have been noted by everyone and thus not allowed to happen. Then Cardinal McCarrick would not have been at the 2013 conclave, just as the Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien was not present due to his sexual abuse of adult males under his authority.
Will the Viganò memo meet the same fate as the five Dubia on Amoris Laetitia submitted by Cardinal Burke et al? For the good of the Church, the faithful must not let that happen. Francis should not be shown the misplaced charity of silence in response to his silence.
Recall that Juan Barros would still be the bishop of Osorno, Chile, if the laity in particular had not kept insisting on the need to answer the question,
“Why is this underserving man who failed to protect victims of sexual abuse by an important cleric (Fr. Fernando Karadima) still the bishop of a diocese?”
This time the question is:
“Did Pope Francis ignore and cover up McCarrick’s sexual abuse of seminarians, abuse made possible by McCarrick’s immoral use of his episcopal authority?”
If the pope did this, by his own words he indicts himself. That question, prompted by Viganò’s eminently coherent account of his personal interactions with Francis, must be answered. Our pontiff must confirm the brethren in the truth by telling the Church what he knew and did regarding McCarrick.
I didn't see this earlier, but First Things ran this Lawler article one day before the Murray article above...
Will battles erupt within the Catholic hierarchy following allegations by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò that Pope Francis has long been aware of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual misconduct? The prospect of open warfare among the bishops is of course enticing to the growing pack of reporters covering the story.
Perhaps more surprisingly, it is also welcome to the many faithful Catholics who, exhausted and enraged by the serial revelations of cover-ups and corruption that they have endured for years, want the full truth now, whatever the cost.
The impatient demands for a full account of the abuse scandals have now been linked to questions about Francis's leadership. Elected with a clear mandate for reform, especially on the sex-abuse question, the pontiff has failed to match strong statements with effective actions. Now Archbishop Viganò's testimony casts into doubt the pope’s professed commitment to rid the Church of predatory clerics.
Viganò undeniably qualifies as an expert witness in the case. For years a ranking official at the Vatican Secretariat of State, whose duties included handling the cases of “problem” prelates, he was appointed in 2011 as apostolic nuncio (the equivalent of Vatican ambassador) to the U.S. In the former assignment, he reports, he saw memos about McCarrick’s habit of luring seminarians into bed at his beach house. In the latter, he spoke directly with Francis about McCarrick’s continued public role.
In his statement, Viganò reveals that Pope Benedict XVI had disciplined Cardinal McCarrick for his misconduct, ordering the prelate to retreat from public life. According to Viganò, Francis later lifted that sanction, giving McCarrick influence as papal adviser and allowing him a key role in the appointment of American bishops.
Here we encounter the first difficulty with Viganò’s testimony, because in fact McCarrick, after retiring as archbishop of Washington, did not retreat from public life. He moved out of a seminary in Washington (apparently as a result of Benedict’s order) but continued to make public appearances. He even joined other cardinals at the Vatican in a farewell ceremony for Benedict when the pope left office.
So is Viganò’s testimony inaccurate? Or was McCarrick flouting a papal directive? “Viganò said the truth,” reports Msgr. Jean-François Lantheaume, a former counselor at the nuncio’s office in Washington who had first-hand acquaintance with Benedict’s order. But apparently McCarrick had powerful friends in Rome, including the former Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who made sure the papal sanctions were not strictly enforced.
That explanation matches reports that Benedict was frustrated by his inability to ensure his orders were carried out. He once told a visitor that his papal authority extended only as far as the door to his office. Indeed, the Viganò testimony may provide a hint of why Benedict felt compelled to resign; he lacked the strength and managerial skill necessary to overcome the resistance of the Vatican bureaucracy.
Then again, if Benedict had disciplined McCarrick, why did he impose sanctions secretly? It is easy to second-guess the former pontiff on that score, particularly in light of the current demands for full disclosure.
But again the action fits a pattern. Earlier in his papacy, Benedict had quietly imposed the same sort of sanctions on Father Marcial Maciel, the powerful founder of the Legionaries of Christ (who, not coincidentally, had also been protected by Sodano). Learning that Maciel had led a scandalous double life, Benedict ordered him to a private life of penance;
only later did Maciel’s record come to light. [Lawler is manifestly wrong in this. First, Maciel's double life was of far more public knowledge for years than McCarrick's. Maciel's punishment and crimes were officially made known by Benedict XVI shortly after he became pope - even if the investigations by the CDF into it began before that. It was publicly known at the time that the Ratzinger CDF's investigation of Maciel hit several roadblocks, chiefly that of Maciel's powerful protector, then Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, who did appear to have John Paul II's backing on this. But in 2004, the CDF did resume its investigation of Maciel and made known its verdict in May 2006.]
If Viganò’s testimony is accurate, then Francis has now done only what Benedict sought to do nearly a decade ago: Remove McCarrick from the public scene. But whereas Benedict can be criticized for shielding McCarrick from disgrace, Francis deserves much greater censure for both allowing a predator into his inner circle and taking disciplinary action only after the scandal became a matter of public knowledge.
Sadly, this too follows a familiar pattern. Again and again Catholic bishops have removed abusers from office and issued public apologies only after the media reported the offenses. During his visit to Ireland this past weekend, Francis used one of his scatological references to describe the pattern of cover-ups. Now he himself is implicated in the behavior he has denounced.
All this assumes, again, that the Viganò testimony is accurate. But what motive would he have for making false claims? Archbishop Viganò knows that one word from Pope Emeritus Benedict would destroy his credibility.
He must have known, too, that parts of his report reflect badly on himself, and that his own role in cover-ups would soon come to light. [He has since explained, almost pre-emptively, the false charge that, as Nuncio to the USA, he had quashed a Church investigation into claims of sex abuse cover-up against Minnestoa Bishop Nienstedt, who incidentally, was eventually found innocent in civilian court.] The archbishop says that he made his statement to clear his conscience, and that explanation rings true.
Francis has chosen not to defend himself — at least not for now. He told journalists that he would not say “a single word” about the Viganò testimony, leaving reporters to investigate the claims for themselves.
Perhaps he was relying on the ability of his aides to impugn Viganò’s character, or the distaste of the secular media for any inquiry into the influence of homosexuals in Rome. But eventually the pontiff must give an accounting.
[Excuse me, Mr Lawler, but what 'distaste of the secular media...'? It can hardly be distaste for they report gloatingly on the least bit of homosexual scandal they can mine from the Italian media, for instance, even if most of it is tabloid journalism. What it is is sheer laziness - inexplicable, to be sure, for why, for instance, would a John Allen ignore the chance to win all sorts of journalistic prizes for doing a credible investigation of just one of these scandals? But as in the grossly overblown Vatileaks-1, not one journalist, Vaticanista or not, bothered to check out any of the major allegations made - but in that case, it was mostly because there really was 'no there there' in those allegations, in other words, no genuine scandal that merited investigation, so what was all the hoo-hah about?]
Meanwhile, in the little diocese of Tyler, Texas, Bishop Joseph Strickland — who has played no special role in this drama to date, and has no particular access to inside information — has told his flock that he finds the Viganò testimony credible, and demanded an in-depth investigation. Will other bishops — prompted by Viganò’s example and the Catholic laity's fury — join in the call for full disclosure?
The questions raised by Viganò cannot be un-asked. They can only be answered or ignored. To answer them will entail a painful process, quite possibly leading to a purge of the Catholic hierarchy. But to ignore them would require another cover-up. That could be fatal to this papacy.
FRANCIS MUST GO -
HE IS MORALLY DEAD ANYWAY
Editorial
RORATE CAELI
August 27, 2018
In the two years that led to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI from the papacy, many strange things happened: leaks, a Secretary of State (Cardinal Bertone) who seemed intent on making things difficult for the pope, and a crisis that seemingly had left his control. Only seemingly: what was actually happening was that the large group of Cardinals involved in what would become known as the "St-Gallen Mafia" were plotting to force Pope Ratzinger's departure in a see of problems, forcing the election of the "anti-Ratzinger" -- indeed, the anti-Ratzinger they had promoted in the previous conclave, Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires.
It all went exactly as planned. Benedict XVI became, or was, convinced that he would not be able to fix things and left. And Bergoglio, the Horror, was elected. The Horror was how we characterized the Pontificate that was about to begin, on the very day of Bergoglio's election.
And how we were criticized and vilified for it! In fact, if you go back and read that post by a dear Argentinian friend, that followed on the footsteps of our intense coverage of the Church in Argentina since our founding, you will see that the current Pope is not accused of heresy. Never once! He is not accused of apostasy. We were wrongly charged with all evils, when in fact
our concern, that proved absolutely true, regarding this Pope was his mix of the worst moral companions and his utter doctrinal confusion.
Alas, his friends, the same who got him elected, got the best of him. From the very beginning, as the damning written testimony by Archbishop Viganò (at the time, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States) makes clear,
Francis used all means, including malice and deception, to help his friends, such as then-Cardinal McCarrick, and also Cardinal Danneels. And he used all means to punish those he saw as his enemies, such as Cardinal Burke, Archbishop Léonard of Brussels, and so many others.
And he destroyed countless lives and vocations. Remember the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate? Your kids won't. They won't even know that a young, thriving, traditional order of Franciscans once existed, thanks to this failed pontificate.
Evil in his persecution of anyone with whom he disagreed; evil in his purposeful implementation of confusion in doctrine; evil in his refusal to clarify the confusion he himself had generated -- Francis has, with his authoritarian evil, heightened the tensions within the Church to levels not reached since the Protestant Revolt or the French Revolution.
But this time the revolutionary malice comes from within the Church, from a theologically stunted and morally bankrupt, evil-pursuing tyrant.
Francis must go.
The Cadaver Synod of 897, when a papal cadaver was exhumed and put on trial in full papal regalia.
An unbearable stench fills the edifice of the Catholic Church. It emanates from the Throne of Peter, where a corpse decays before the whole universe. The powers of the world still parade before the cadaver, offering it secular homages, but the Catholic faithful recoil in horror before the nauseating pagan spectacle.
Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is dead. He is not actually deceased, but his moral presence is gone. His moral corpse is the revolting cadaver sitting upon the Cathedra of the Prince of the Apostles. And his only real supporters -- the liberals, the heretics, the apostates -- are already scheming to figure out how to replace him when the inevitable occurs.
He has deceived, he has persecuted the truly faithful, he has confused the little ones in their faith, he has mocked Tradition whenever he could. Above all, he has lied, and he has been shown to lie, and he has been presented as a consummate liar in the protection of a racket of perverted and abusive priests who are his closest aides.
All that is left for him is to remove his corrupt moral body weighing on Holy Mother Church and go away. Abdication is the only possible solution to five years of growing disgrace and purposeful mismanagement.
The horror we identified on the very first day has come to full fruition, as a pustulous infructescence of corruption: Sodom in Rome.
CHURCHMILITANT collates the information on the assistance Mons Vigano sought and got from Vaticanistas Marco Tosatti and Aldo Maria Valli before releasing his testimony for publication. Both of whom, incidentally, disclosed this assistance at the time the testimony was made public.
It was, of course, most prudent of him to do this - to make sure, as Tosatti underscores, that his testimony would be 'absolutely waterproof'. So Vigano called for help on two of the most diligent and conscientious of Bergoglio critics in the Italian media. What's wrong with that? It's equivalent to Bergoglio having the constant advice and assistance of Andrea Tornielli and Antonio Spadaro onvvirtually every move he makes. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Viganò had help from 2 Italian journalists
[On style and presentation, obviously, not on the content and substance]
by Rodney Pelletier
August 28, 2018
DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò had help publishing his explosive testimony revealing Pope Francis' complicity in covering up for clerical homosexual predators.
In accounts by two separate Italian journalists, it's being revealed that Viganò had some help getting his now-infamous testimony edited and published.
The Associated Press (AP) is reporting a conversation with Marco Tosatti where he recounts sitting in his living room with Viganò on Aug. 22, helping the archbishop edit his original document.
"He had prepared some kind of a draft of a document," Tosatti said, adding,
"I told him that we had to work on it really because it was not in a journalistic style," also noting that he cut out claims that couldn't be easily validated, telling Viganò "it had to be absolutely waterproof."
Aldo Maria Valli revealed on Monday that he had several conversations with Viganò beforehand, hosting him at his house on at least two separate occasions.
Valli recounts that Viganò said,
"I am 77 years old, I am at the end of my life. I do not care about men's judgment. The only judgment that matters is that of the good God. He will ask me what I have done for the Church of Christ and I want to be able to answer that I have defended and served until the end."
He said they discussed the Aug. 14 Pennsylvania grand jury report, noting that Viganò confirmed the attorney general's report was accurate, adding it was more "correct" to call the abuse ephebophilia "because in the vast majority of cases it is a matter of homosexual clerics that hunt for adolescent males."
He also confirmed Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro's comment that the cover up for the abuse goes all the way to the Vatican.
According to Valli, Viganò also added,
"Because those cracks mentioned by Paul VI, from which Satan's smoke would have slipped into the house of God, have become chasms. The devil is working great. And not to admit it, or turn your face to the other side, it would be our greatest sin."
Viganò maintained he did not care about his name being dragged through the dirt, adding, "The only thing that matters to me is to bring the truth to the surface, so that a purification can begin. At the point where we are there is no other way."
Valli also reveals Viganò requested that he and "another Italian blogger" [Tosatti]publish the testimony and that it will also be published by "an Englishman, an American and a Canadian" on Aug. 26,
"because the pope, returning from Dublin, will have the opportunity to reply by answering questions from journalists on the plane."
Pope Francis, however, did not answer any allegations, instead telling the press to read the testimony carefully and "judge it for yourselves."
Joshua McElwee of the dissident National Catholic Reporter is claiming Tosatti was the "ghostwriter" of Viganò's testimony.
Tosatti responds, "I [helped] edit the text prepared by Viganò. The contents of the document are completely his. Ghostwriter, my left foot! Incredible nonsense."
AP, surprisingly, has devoted a full article to Tosatti and his interactions with Vigano on the 'testimony'. I say surprisingly because the writer, AP's chief Vatican correspondent, Nicole Winfield, in her initial report on the Vigano story, was more than just a tad cynical and dubious about what it says...
Journalist who helped pen
Vigano bombshell says author wept
ROME, August 28, 2018 (AP) — An Italian journalist who says he helped a former Vatican diplomat pen his bombshell allegation of sex abuse cover-up against Pope Francis says he persuaded the archbishop to go public after the U.S. church was thrown into turmoil by revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report.
Marco Tosatti said he helped Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano write, rewrite and edit his 11-page testimony, saying the two sat side-by-side at a wooden table in Tosatti’s living room for three hours on Aug. 22.
Tosatti, a leading Italian critic of Francis, told The Associated Press that Vigano had called him a few weeks ago out of the blue asking to meet, and then proceeded to tell him the information that became the basis of the testimony.
Vigano’s document alleges that Francis knew of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual misconduct starting in 2013, but rehabilitated him from sanctions that Pope Benedict XVI had imposed. The claims have shaken Francis’s five-year papacy.
Vigano called for Francis to resign over what he said was complicity in covering up McCarrick’s crimes.
There is ample evidence, however, that the Vatican under Benedict and St. John Paul II also covered up that information, and that any sanctions Benedict imposed were never enforced.
Vigano has kept largely quiet since the bombshell testimony Sunday, and his whereabouts are unknown. As a result, Tosatti’s reconstruction provides the only insight into how the document came about.
Tosatti, a longtime correspondent for Italian daily
La Stampa but who now writes largely for more conservative blogs and newspapers, said after their initial meeting a few weeks ago, Vigano said he wasn’t prepared to go public. They had been acquaintances, not friends, and Vigano said he needed to settle some personal matters before proceeding.
But Tosatti said he called him after the Pennsylvania grand jury report published Aug. 15 alleged some 300 priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses abused more than 1,000 children over the past 70 years, and that a sequence of bishops had covered it up.
Tosatti said he told Vigano: “I think that if you want to say something, now is the moment, because everything is going upside-down in the United States. He said ‘OK.’”
The two then met at Tosatti’s Rome apartment. Initially, Tosatti thought Vigano would give him an interview, but then Vigano decided to put his thoughts on paper.
“He had prepared some kind of a draft of a document and he sat here by my side,” Tosatti told the AP from behind his desk, pointing to the wooden chair to his right. “I told him that we had to work on it really because it was not in a journalistic style.”
Tosatti said he persuaded Vigano to cut claims that couldn’t be substantiated or documented “because it had to be absolutely waterproof.” Tosatti said Vigano was “deadly serious” the whole time, and that both emerged physically and emotionally exhausted.
Tosatti said Vigano was well aware of the implications of the document and what it took for a Holy See diplomat to reveal secrets he had kept for years.
“They are brought up to die silent,” Tosatti said of Holy See diplomats. “So what he was doing, what he was going to do, was something absolutely against his nature.”
But he said Vigano felt compelled to publish out of a sense of duty to the Catholic Church and to clear his conscience.
“He enjoys a good health but 77 is an age where you start preparing yourself ... he couldn’t have a clear conscience unless he spoke,” Tosatti said.
Document in hand, Tosatti then set out to find publications willing to publish it in its entirety: the small Italian daily
La Verita, the English-language National Catholic Register and LifeSiteNews and the Spanish online site InfoVaticana.
All are conservative or ultraconservative media that have been highly critical of Francis’s mercy-over-morals papacy.
The English and Spanish publications translated the Italian document and all agreed on a Sunday morning embargo, coinciding with the second and final day of Francis’ trip to Ireland, where the Catholic church’s sex abuse and cover-up scandal dominated his trip.
Tosatti said Vigano didn’t tell him where he was going after the article came out, knowing that the world’s media would be clamoring to speak with him.
As Tosatti accompanied Vigano to his door, he bent down to kiss Vigano’s ring — a sign of respect for Catholic bishops.
“He tried to say ‘No.’ I told him ’It’s not for you, it’s for the role that you (play) that I do it,’” Tosatti said. “He didn’t say anything. He went away, but he was crying.”
Meanwhile the Bergogliacs have had two reactions in general:
1) Shoot the messenger - Vigano has axes to grind and is not above suspicion himself; or
2) So, what else is news - we've been there, done that - and we're even worse off now than in 2002.
But except for a few pitiable flailings here and there, none of them really has an answer for the documented facts and dates Vigano has presented. Bergoglio himself could not bring himself to make a simple denial!
I also want to include here, for the Forum record, Damian Thompson's first reaction to the Vigano letter - having been among the very first Anglophone writers to comment on it. After summarizing the most telling part of Vigano's 'J'accuse' insofar as it had to do with Pope Francis and Theodore McCarrick, Thompson wrote:
The Viganò testament is ferocious in tone: it is clearly written by a conservative who strongly disapproves of the US ‘liberal establishment’ of Cardinals Wuerl, Cupich, and Tobin.
But the document’s detailed allegations cannot to be dismissed on grounds of bias. Either they are true or they are false. If they are true, then Pope Francis has actively promoted the career of a sex abuser, knowing of the allegations against him – and sabotaged Pope Benedict’s attempt to protect the Church from any further crimes by Theodore McCarrick.
It is very hard to overstate the gravity of the crisis facing the Pope and members of the senior hierarchy of the United States today. They have been implicated in an alleged conspiracy to protect a sex criminal.
The charges made by Viganò are so extensive, and so serious, that legal proceedings arising from them are likely to be on a gigantic scale – and will take years rather than months to address.
Long before they are concluded, there is a strong possibility that the pontificate of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentinian who took the name of Pope Francis, will have come to a spectacular and disastrous end.
Pope Francis’s track record suggests
he’d ‘rehabilitate’ someone like McCarrick
August 27, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Following is an excerpt from an Aug. 27 National Review article by Michael Brendan Dougherty indicating why Archbishop Vigano’s charges against Pope Francis are likely credible:
Viganò’s letter comes at a time after Pope Francis has mishandled several cases involving clerical abuse.
- There was the case of “Don Mercedes,” an Italian priest who sexually assaulted minors in the confessional. Francis rehabilitated him under the advice of his cardinal advisers, until reporters exposed it [NO! until an Italian court found him guilty of multiple sex abuses and sentenced him!!!!] and he was cast out.
- Then there was the saga in Chile, where Francis lashed out at victims’ groups before finally authorizing a proper investigation of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, whom he had appointed, over protests, in 2015.
- Francis’s close adviser Cardinal Maradiaga is under pressure for tolerating a culture of sexual harassment at a seminary in Honduras.
- Francis also invited to the Synod on the Family the liberal lion and notorious figure Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who had tried to silence a person he knew with moral certainty was the victim of sexual abuse by his priest-uncle. Later found to be negligent generally on the matter of clerical abuse, Danneels was thought to favor the election of Bergoglio to the papacy.
That is to say, the record of Francis’s pontificate is such that it is easier than it should be to credit the accusation that he would knowingly rehabilitate a progressive but morally dissolute cardinal and grant him greater influence in the Church.
That he refused to deny it on the plane ride home, instead inviting the media to examine the statement for themselves, is disconcerting to say the least.
The Sunday Mass scriptures during this summer of horrors have often been eerily appropriate, beginning with Jeremiah’s polemic against malfeasant shepherds who mislead the Lord’s flock (July 25) and continuing through the story of many disciples’ defection after the “hard words” of the Bread of Life discourse (August 26).
And it’s entirely understandable that more than a few Catholics have choked on the word “holy” these past few months, when asked to affirm it of the Church during the Creed and the Offertory. But while understandable, it still bespeaks a misunderstanding.
The reason why is given immediately after the defection story in John 6: 60-66, when the Lord asks the Twelve whether they, too, are going to bail on him and Peter answers, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Everlasting life is offered to us sacramentally at every Mass. That is what we believe; that is why we remain in the Church; and that is why we must all bend every effort, from our distinct states of life in the Mystical Body of Christ, to reform what must be reformed so that others may know and love the Lord Jesus and experience the life-giving fruits of friendship with him.
The Church’s current crisis is a crisis of fidelity and a crisis of holiness, a crisis of infidelity and a crisis of sin. It is also a crisis of evangelization, for shepherds without credibility impede the proclamation of the Gospel — which, as the other headlines of the day suggest, the world badly needs.
In the immediate aftermath of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s “Testimony,” and its statement that Pope Francis knew of the sins of Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, and lifted the sanctions against McCarrick that had been imposed (but never seriously enforced) by Pope Benedict XVI, the polemics within the Church immediately intensified and ricocheted through the media.
In this febrile atmosphere, it is virtually impossible for anyone to say anything without arousing suspicions and accusations. But as I knew Archbishop Viganò well during his service as papal representative in Washington, I feel obliged to speak about him, which I hope will help others consider his very, very serious claims thoughtfully.
First, Archbishop Viganò is a courageous reformer, who was moved out of the Vatican by his immediate superiors because he was determined to confront financial corruption in the Governatorato, the administration of Vatican City State.
Second, Archbishop Viganò is, in my experience, an honest man. We spoke often about many things, large and small, and I never had the impression that I was being given anything other than what he believed in his conscience to be the truth. That does not mean that he got everything right; a man of humility and prayer, he would be the first to concede that.
But it does suggest that attempts to portray him as someone deliberately making false accusations, someone other than an honest witness to what he believes to be the truth, are unpersuasive. When he writes in his Testimony that he is “ready to affirm [these allegations] on oath calling on God as my witness,” he means it. And he means it absolutely. Archbishop Viganò knows that, in swearing such an oath, he would be taking his soul into his hands; which means he knows that if he were to speak falsely, he would be unlikely to find his soul again.
Third, Archbishop Viganò is a loyal churchman of a certain generation and formation, bred to a genuine piety about the papacy. His training in the papal diplomatic service would instinctively lead him to make the defense of the pope his first, second, third, and hundredth priority.
If he believes that what he has now said is true, and that the Church needs to learn that truth in order to cleanse itself of what is impeding its evangelical mission, then he is overriding his ingrained instincts for the gravest of reasons.
What Archbishop Viganò testifies to knowing on the basis of direct, personal, and in many cases documentable experiences in Rome and Washington deserves to be taken seriously, not peremptorily dismissed or ignored. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the U.S. bishops’ conference president, evidently agrees, as his August 27 statement makes clear. That is another step toward the purification and reform we need.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/08/2018 02:29]