VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Catholic Vote [Madison, WI]
June 20, 2024
By Grace Porto
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has been summoned to the Vatican on charges of schism, according to a statement released by Vatican-based US journalist Robert Moynihan.
The former papal nuncio to the US, Archbishop Vigano gained much public attention in 2018 when he published a letter accusing Pope Francis of covering up the allegations of sexual abuse against Theodore McCarrick. In the letter, Vigano called on everyone who covered up McCarick’s abuses, including Pope Francis, to resign from their duties.
Since then, Archbishop Vigano has garnered attention for his outspoken criticism of coronavirus restrictions, and his rejection of the Second Vatican Council. In December 2023 he opened a seminary, Collegium Traditionis, for priests and seminarians to receive formation without being “subjected to the blackmail of having to accept the errors of Vatican II.”
Archbishop Vigano responded to his summons with a public letter, saying, “I regard the accusations against me as an honor.” In his letter, he refers to Pope Francis as “Bergoglio” and accuses the Pope of supporting globalism through his support of “uncontrolled immigration,” “LGBTQ+ ideology,” and “the green agenda.” He also accuses the Holy Father of silence in the face of global social issues like abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality.
He further accuses Pope Francis of exercising “the most ruthless Vatican authoritarianism” against faithful priests, religious, nuns, and “communities tied to the Latin mass.” Vigano remarks, “This one-sided zeal is… typical of those who defy Providence in the presumption of knowing that they are finally at the top of the hierarchical pyramid,” and then compares Pope Francis to other world leaders who are “traitors, subversives, and final liquidators of traditional society who are certain of impunity.”
In response to the charge of schism, Vigano states that he is “honored not to have – and indeed I do not want – any ecclesial communion with [Pope Francis],” but that he is “in full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, with the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiffs, and with the uninterrupted doctrinal, moral, and liturgical Tradition which they have faithfully preserved.”
He goes on to say that “No Catholic worthy of the name can be in communion with this ‘Bergoglian church,’ because it acts in clear discontinuity and rupture with all the Popes of history and with the Church of Christ.”
Finally, Archbishop Vigano compares himself to schismatic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated in 1988 after consecrating four bishops without the permission of the Holy See.
Vigano states, “His [Lefebvre’s] defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine – arguments before which the Roman authorities could not condemn him for heresy, having to wait instead for him to consecrate bishops so as to have the pretext of declaring him schismatic and then revoking his excommunication when he was already dead.” In fact, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of the four bishops, not of Lefebvre himself.
Vigano ends his letter by inviting “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.”