Former papal nuncio to the US faces excommunication and laicization
The Vatican has charged its outspoken former ambassador to the United States with the canonical crime of schism and with denying the legitimacy of Pope Francis as the validly reigning pontiff.
The DDF summons accused the former papal nuncio of “public statements which result in a denial of the elements to maintain communion with the Catholic,” including “rupture of communion” with Pope Francis, and with “rejection of the Second Vatican Council.”
“I regard the accusations against me as an honor. I believe that the very wording of the charges confirms the theses that I have repeatedly defended in my various addresses,” Viganò wrote in a public statement sent to Souls and Liberty.
“In the ‘synodal church’ presided over by Bergoglio, no schism is recognized among the German Episcopate, or among the government-appointed Bishops who have been consecrated in China without the mandate of Rome,” the archbishop stressed.
Viganò elaborated:
“The Catholic Church has been slowly but surely taken over, and Bergoglio has been given the task of making it a philanthropic agency, the ‘church of humanity, of inclusion, of the environment’ at the service of the New World Order. But this is not the Catholic Church: it is her counterfeit.”
“Not a word for the persecuted Catholics in China, with the complicity of the Holy See, which considers Beijing’s billions more important than the lives and freedom of thousands of Chinese who are faithful to the Roman Church,” Viganò stated.
“As the time approaches when I will have to give an account to the Son of God of all my actions, I intend to persevere in the bonum certamen and not to fail in the witness of faith which is required of each one who, as Bishop, has been endowed with the fullness of the priesthood and constituted Successor of the Apostles,” the prelate emphasized.
The process of an extrajudicial penal trial consists of a fast-track disciplinary procedure that can be used when the evidence gathered during a formal preliminary investigation is sufficiently clear, removing the need for a full canonical trial.
According to the summons, Viganò has the right to appoint an advocate or procurator who will defend him and can demand to see the evidence against him. However, the legal procedure omits several rounds of formal arguments and rebuttals.
The summons warns that the archbishop will be judged in his absence if he does not appear before the court or submit a written defense by June 28.
If the accused does not repent, is judged to be obstinate in their crime, or “the gravity of scandal demands it,” he may be defrocked as a perpetual penalty.
Archbishop Viganò was appointed as apostolic nuncio to the USA by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 19, 2011, the memorial feast of the first North American Martyrs.
He shocked the world by testifying against serial homopredator, ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick; and listing the names of top Vatican officials, including secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whom he accused of complicity in covering-up McCarrick’s crimes.
McCarrick was removed from ministry in 2018 after an ecclesiastical investigation found that he had been credibly accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old altar boy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan in 1971. McCarrick was removed from the priesthood in 2019, after a Vatican trial.
This is a developing story.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.
