CNA Staff, May 8, 2020 / 10:25 am (CNA).- Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has accused a Vatican cardinal of causing him “serious harm” in a bitter war of words over a controversial open letter regarding the coronavirus crisis.
In a statement published May 8, the archbishop criticized Cardinal Robert Sarah’s decision to distance himself from the letter, titled “Appeal for the Church and the World,” which argues that the coronavirus pandemic has been exploited in order to create a one-world government.
The statement details Vigano’s account of his interactions with Sarah beginning May 4. Viganò claims that on the evening of May 7, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments asked him to remove him from the list of signatories to the letter, which had by that time already been published.
“With surprise and deep regret,” he wrote, “I then learned that His Eminence had used his Twitter account, without giving me any notice, to make statements that cause serious harm to the truth and to my person.”
Viganò was referring to a series of three May 7 tweets from Sarah, which said: “A Cardinal Prefect, member of the Roman Curia has to observe a certain restriction on political matters. He shouldn’t sign petitions in such aereas [sic].”
“Therefore this morning I explicitely [sic] asked the authors of the petition titled ‘For the Church and for the world’ not to mention my name.”
“From a personal point of view, I may share some questions or preoccupations raised regarding restrictions on fundamental freedom but I didn’t sign that petition,” Sarah added.
Viganò’s statement continued: “I am very sorry that this matter, which is due to human weakness, and for which I bear no resentment towards the person who caused it, has distracted our attention from what must seriously concern us at this dramatic moment.”
After Viganò issued his rebuke, Sarah tweeted May 8: “I will not speak to this petition, which today seems to occupy a lot of people. I leave to their conscience those who want to exploit it in one way or another. I decided not to sign this text. I fully accept my choice.”
In his statement, Viganò said he had chosen to publicize his private conversations with Sarah because he had a duty to tell the truth, and “also for the sake of fraternal correction.”
Vigano said Sarah had initially told him: “Yes, I agree to put my name to it, because this is a fight we must engage in together, not only for the Catholic Church but for all mankind.”
He confirmed that Sarah’s signature has now been removed from the open letter.
Vigano, a former papal nuncio made headlines in August 2018, for a letter that alleged Vatican officials had ignored warnings about the sexual abuse of disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Since that time, Vigano has released numerous letters expressing his viewpoints on matters in the Church, which include criticisms of Pope Francis and other curial officials.
The appeal argued that as a result of the pandemic centuries of Christian civilization could be “erased under the pretext of a virus” and an “odious technological tyranny” established in its place.
It said: “We have reason to believe, on the basis of official data on the incidence of the epidemic as related to the number of deaths, that there are powers interested in creating panic among the world’s population with the sole aim of permanently imposing unacceptable forms of restriction on freedoms, of controlling people and of tracking their movements. The imposition of these illiberal measures is a disturbing prelude to the realization of a World Government beyond all control.”
Several bishops and cardinals are alleged to have signed the letter. Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas told CNA May 7 that he had signed it.
A press release on the appeal’s website May 8 claimed that Robert Kennedy Jr, son of the slain US. Presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy, had signed the letter.
To date, nearly 4 million people have tested positive for the coronavirus, and at least 272,000 have died.
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Do Catholics want Universal Brotherhood or Catholicism? With all due respect to the active Ministerium you occupy, you might meditate ppBXVI :
“By her nature the Church does not herself engage in politics; rather, She respects the autonomy of the state and its ordering.”
Ignatius Press, God is Love, Annexe. Introduction written by the former holder of the Papal Munus, ppBXVI.
Like all fellow mortals, politicians are human, fragile and mortal. During their brief tenure of humble service to humankind and Planet Earth, they are known to generate good and very ideas. We need to pray for their wellbeing and good health.
Yes on all points. And yet, there falls the shadow…
The problem is that even elected folks who attend to the needs of abstract “humankind” too often do not much care for real people in the concrete. The most egregious example is the Gulag. And, as for “Planet Earth,” this too has merit, but we also pray that politicians can tell the difference between responsible stewardship and an airbrush and one-world ideology.
So, too, the “service of their own people, working for integral human development and the common good.” With “integral human development” defined as the whole person [!] and all persons. And, about the elusive riddle of the rarely-defined “common good,” how to do both Solidarity AND Subsidiarity always together?
Some clues:
CLUE #1: “The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains ‘common,’ because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future” (“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” 2004, n. 164).
CLUE #2: “Catholic political philosophy asserts that in human nature is the origin of the state. Here it must be stated that ‘human nature’ should be understood in its full philosophical meaning. Human nature does not [!] mean the empirical, psychological nature as the politician or the advertising businessman sees it. The state originates in the bodily and spiritual nature of man. Nature or essence is also the end of man’s activity and striving. Therefore the political status is necessary for the fulfillment of man’s end; the state is an intentional disposition of human nature . . . the state is not a supernatural, immediately divine establishment. Yet, as originating in human nature, divinely established, the state is part and subject of the order of the Creator” (Heinrich Rommen, LL.D., The State in Catholic Thought: A Treatise in Political Philosophy (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder Book Co., 1945), 220-1.
CLUE #3: The common good “embraces the sum of those conditions of social life by which individuals, families, and groups can achieve their own fulfillment [!] in a relatively thorough and ready way” (Rommen).
Subsidiarity is not only the lower and more local levels of government, but also those communities and initiatives other than any level of government or within the domain of politicians.
July 25 I had called on the Holy Father in the CWR Extra, extra! feature of July 24, to condemn the abortion meeting the Jesuits and the Kennedys held between themselves back in the Sixites. See in the Comments in the CWR link.
I said “Correct and condemn it.” This month’s Papal intention could be the correction?
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/07/24/extra-extra-news-and-views-for-wednesday-july-24-2024/