Hear
ROME.- The monsignor Carlo María Viganò, Italian archbishop who rose to international fame in late August 2018, when in an incendiary letter He accused various high officials of the Roman curia and even Pope Francis of having covered up the abuses of an American cardinal and even called for the resignation of the Pontiff. was accused by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) of having committed the crime of schism.
The news – a bomb in the Vatican – was communicated by the same accused, who in a post in X published the decree of said “ministry” of the Holy See, dated June 11, which summoned him to be presented this Thursday, at 3:30 p.m. local, at the DDF Palazzo to “take note of the accusations and evidence regarding the crime of schism of which he is accused (public statements from which results a denial of the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church; denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis, rupture of communion with Him and rejection of the Second Vatican Council).
Signed by Monsignor John Kennedy, secretary of the DDF’s disciplinary section, the decree warned that Viganò, one of the Pope’s greatest critics who was nuncio to the United States and is 83 years old, to face this “extrajudicial criminal process”, could appoint a lawyer or attorney of his confidence to be defended or represented in the present process and, if not, he would have an ex-officio lawyer.
As far as he could know LA NACION, if found guilty of the crime of schism, Viganò could be sentenced to the penalty of latae sententiae excommunication -according to canon 1364 of the Code of Canon Law-, although, in addition, according to the norms Other penalties may be imposed, up to and including resignation from the clerical state.
It is assumed that the decision to initiate an investigation and a process against this more than controversial ultraconservative prelate It had the approval not only of the current prefect of the DDF, Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández but also from Pope Francis himself.
In recent years, evidently obsessed with the current pontificate, Viganò, admirer of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and anti-vaccine activist, He constantly attacked the Pontiff through articles and videos published on ultra-conservative blogs. In fact, he is about to open in Viterbo, north of Rome, a seminary for dissident ultra-traditionalists, lovers of the ancient Latin mass and victims of the “Bergoglian purges,” according to an article published some time ago by the newspaper The Republic. Horrified after Francis’s openness to blessings – non-liturgical – to homosexual couples, it also emerged that he was reconsecrated by Monsignor Richard Williamson, the British schismatic bishop who, being a Lefebvrian and being in Argentina, denied the Holocaust.
True to his disruptive style, Viganò, who appeared at the meeting this Thursday and presented his defense, reacted to the news of the accusation with another strong attack on the Pope and assured that For him, being prosecuted for the crime of schism was “a reason for honor.”.
“I consider the accusations against me as a matter of honor. “I believe that the very formulation of the accusations confirms the theses that I maintained more and more times in my interventions,” the former nuncio wrote in a statement that was published on the blog of the ultra-conservative Italian journalist Aldo Maria Valli. “It is no coincidence that the accusation against me has to do with the discussion of the legitimacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the rejection of Vatican II: The Council represents the ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer of which the Bergoglian ‘synodal church’ needs a metastasis“Viganò shot.
The archbishop wrote that it was urgent for the episcopate, the clergy and all the people of God to rebel against the “systematic destruction of the Church by their leaders”, which he compared to what several “subversive” leaders in the world are doing with civil society. “Globalism demands ethnic substitution: Bergoglio promotes uncontrolled immigration and calls for the integration of cultures and religions”, he accused. “Globalism sustains the LGBTQ+ ideology: Bergoglio authorizes the blessings of homosexual couples and imposes acceptance of homosexuality on the faithful, while covering up the scandals of his protégés and promoting them to the highest positions of responsibility,” he added.
The former nuncio also attacked the “green” agenda of globalism, which linked to the “delusional encyclicals on the environment” of the Pope, which “supports the 2030 Agenda and attacks anyone who brings global warming into discussion.” On the other hand, he criticized the Pope’s “total assent to the religion of Davos,” whom he accused of not strongly denouncing the persecutions of Catholics.
“Everywhere, governments serving the World Economic Forum have introduced or extended abortion, promoted vice, legitimized homosexual unions or gender transitions, encouraged euthanasia and tolerated the persecution of Catholics: not a word has been used in defense of threatened Faith or Morals, or to support the civil battles of many Catholics abandoned by the Vatican and the bishops,” he cried.
An expert source consulted by THE NATION stressed that the statement represented another strong proof of the accusations of schism raised by the DDF and considered that the criminal proceedings against Viganò could conclude very quickly. Although it was not expected, the news about the trial of the controversial archbishop, increasingly unleashed, did not really surprise: “It was time”was the most heard comment, especially from the mouths of foreign curia officials.
“The truth, I think that They were very patient with him. From the moment he published classified documents, they should have imposed a sanction on him,” another senior prelate told this correspondent, who recalled that in his famous letter in which he requested the resignation of the Pope, in 2018, the former nuncio brought up papers. reserved linked to Theodore Edgar McCarrick popular exalted American prelate whose abuses were covered up for years by the Vatican. Pope Francis expelled McCarrick from the cardinalate and priesthood after a first complaint of abuse by a minor was certified in 2017 and even ordered an investigation into his case, which concluded that the Holy See made many mistakes.
The cardinal Pietro ParolinSecretary of State of the Holy See and number two of Francis, asked on the sidelines of an event about the trial for schism against the dissident archbishop – which shook the Vatican -, acknowledged that “Monsignor Viganò assumed some attitudes and some gestures that must respond”. And he stressed that the former nuncio has been given the possibility of defending himself.
