Denver Newsroom, Jun 11, 2020 / 07:28 am (CNA).-
President Trump on Wednesday tweeted that he was honored by a letter written to him by former apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Viganò, which warned the president against secular and ecclesiastical agents of an atheistic globalist new world order.
The president’s tweet is the latest in a series of events that have kept the archbishop in the headlines for much of the last two years, a period in which he has become a polarizing figure in the Catholic Church, and morphed in the public eye from a whistleblowing diplomat to a prognosticator of impending doom amid a spiritual and political battle for world domination.
“So honored by Archbishop Viganò’s incredible letter to me. I hope everyone, religious or not, reads it,” Trump tweeted June 10, linking to Vigano’s recent open letter addressed to the president.
So honored by Archbishop Viganò’s incredible letter to me. I hope everyone, religious or not, reads it! https://t.co/fVhkCz89g5
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020
Viganò’s missive to Trump is one of several open letters and interviews the archbishop has published in recent weeks, which make apocalyptic claims about a looming spiritual battle and a globalist conspiracy pursuing a one-world government, alongside a denunciation of the Second Vatican Council, claims about the third secret of Our Lady of Fatima, the charge that some bishops are “false shepherds,” and encouragement that at least some Catholics disobey their bishop.
The June 6 letter said “it appears that the children of darkness – whom we may easily identify with the deep state which you wisely oppose and which is fiercely waging war against you in these days – have decided to show their cards, so to speak, by now revealing their plans.”
“They seem to be so certain of already having everything under control that they have laid aside that circumspection that until now had at least partially concealed their true intentions,” Vigano wrote.
“The investigations already under way will reveal the true responsibility of those who managed the Covid emergency not only in the area of health care but also in politics, the economy, and the media. We will probably find that in this colossal operation of social engineering there are people who have decided the fate of humanity, arrogating to themselves the right to act against the will of citizens and their representatives in the governments of nations,” he added.
Viganò claimed that “just as there is a deep state, there is also a deep church that betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God.”
The archbishop praised Trump, claiming that “both of us are on the same side in this battle, albeit with different weapons,” and adding that criticism of Trump’s June 2 visit to the National Shrine of St. John Paul II is part of an “orchestrated media narrative” against the president.
Viganò added that some bishops, including Washington’s Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who criticized Trump, are “subservient to the deep state, to globalism, to aligned thought, to the New World Order which they invoke ever more frequently in the name of a universal brotherhood which has nothing Christian about it, but which evokes the Masonic ideals of those want to dominate the world by driving God out of the courts, out of schools, out of families, and perhaps even out of churches.”
The archbishop did not offer proof to support the claims in his letter.
Nor has Viganò offered proof to support the claims of his recent letter on the coronavirus pandemic.
On May 7, Viganò published an open letter written principally by himself but signed by several Church leaders, which said the coronavirus pandemic had been exaggerated to foster widespread social panic and undercut freedom, as a willful preparation for the establishment of a one-world government.
That letter lamented social distancing and stay-at-home orders issued to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting they were contrived mechanisms of social control, with a nefarious purpose.
“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 letter said.
“The imposition of these illiberal measures is a disturbing prelude to the realization of a world government beyond all control,” it added. (bold original)
The letter did not identify the “powers” in question, or the source of Viganò’s information.
Among the letters signatories were three cardinals and one sitting U.S. diocesan bishop, as well as Fr. Curzio Nitoglia, a priest of the Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist group in “irregular communion” with the Church. Nitoglia is the author of “The Magisterium of Vatican II,” a 1994 article that claims that “the church of Vatican II is therefore not the Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of a Vatican dicastery, was originally listed as a signatory to the letter, but distanced himself from the letter after it was published.
CNA asked Bishop Joseph Strickland, the U.S. bishop who signed the letter, to explain its claims, but the bishop declined to do so.
CNA asked Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Strickland’s metropolitan archbishop, whether he had concerns about the bishop’s endorsement of the claim that the coronavirus pandemic was a pretext to “allow centuries of Christian civilization to be erased under the pretext of a virus, and an odious technological tyranny to be established, in which nameless and faceless people can decide the fate of the world by confining us to a virtual reality.”
The cardinal did not respond.
Weeks before that letter, in April, Viganò gave an interview in which he declared that the Vatican has been for decades concealing the third secret of Fatima, despite the publication in 2000 of the third part of Mary’s message from the apparition at Fatima, by order of Pope St. John Paul II, and despite an accompanying theological commentary written by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI.
Speculation that Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI lied about releasing the message of Fatima is a common topic among Catholic sedevacantists and other conspiracy theorists.
Kevin Symonds, author of a book on the third part of the Fatima message, wrote subsequently that Viganò’s “grasp of the details is not very precise,” and, under scrutiny, “quickly breaks down.”
“Archbishop Viganò’s remarks indicate a lack of knowledge on the history of the third part of the secret of Fátima. The archbishop faces a grave danger: uninformed statements undermining his credibility,” Symonds added.
Having discussed both Fatima and the coronavirus pandemic already, in June Viganò penned his missive on Trump, and a letter on the Second Vatican Council.
That letter criticized ecumenical and interreligious efforts of Pope St. John Paul, claiming that pope’s Assisi prayer gatherings “initiated a deviant succession of pantheons that were more or less official, even to the point of seeing Bishops carrying the unclean idol of the pachamama on their shoulders, sacrilegiously concealed under the pretext of being a representation of sacred motherhood.”
The archbishop also criticized specific documents of the Council, calling them “root causes” of contemporary issues.
“If the pachamama could be adored in a church, we owe it to Dignitatis Humanae [Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom]…. If the Abu Dhabi Declaration was signed, we owe it to Nostra Aetate [Vatican II’s Declaration on non-Christian religions].”
Listing his concerns about Church in the modern world, including “the democratization of the Church,” “the demolition of the ministerial priesthood,” “the demythologization of the Papacy,” and “the progressive legitimization of all that is politically correct: gender theory, sodomy, homosexual marriage, Malthusian doctrines, ecologism, immigrationism,” Viganò attributed each of them to the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
“If we do not recognize that the roots of these deviations are found in the principles laid down by the Council, it will be impossible to find a cure: if our diagnosis persists, against all the evidence, in excluding the initial pathology, we cannot prescribe a suitable therapy.”
Most significantly, Viganò suggested that the Second Vatican Council catalyzed a massive, but unseen, schism in the Church, ushering in a false Church alongside the true Church.
“It is undeniable that from Vatican II onwards a parallel church was built, superimposed over and diametrically opposed to the true Church of Christ. This parallel church progressively obscured the divine institution founded by Our Lord in order to replace it with a spurious entity.”
The claim that there can be distinguished a pure form of the Church distinct from the Catholic communion of sacraments, magisterial teaching, and hierarchical governance is described by some theologians as a kind of donatism, a heresy addressed by St. Augustine in the 5th century.
Vatican II, Viganò claimed, has led to a “serious apostasy to which the highest levels of the Hierarchy are exposed.”
The archbishop did not specify those Church leaders whom he believes are “exposed” to apostasy, which is the total repudiation of the Catholic faith.
In a June 3 letter, however, Viganò singled out Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who the day before had criticized Trump. Gregory’s Archdiocese of Washington, Viganò wrote, “has been and continues to be deeply afflicted and wounded by false shepherds whose way of life is full of lies, deceits, lust and corruption. Wherever they have been, they were a cause of serious scandal for various local Churches, for your entire country and for the whole Church.”
Viganò also urged Washington, DC Catholics to disobey Gregory.
“Do not follow them, as they lead you to perdition. They are mercenaries. They teach and practice falsehoods and corruption,” Vigano wrote, without offering additional or specific information.
No U.S. bishops have yet spoken publicly about Viganò’s recent letters, a fact that some critics have attributed to an aspect of clerical culture in which bishops are reluctant to criticize one another in public.
Viganò, however, has not been reticent to criticize fellow bishops in recent years.
The archbishop made international headlines in August 2018, when he published an 11-page “testament” accusing several senior bishops of complicity in covering up the sexual abuse of McCarrick, claiming that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI, but chose to repeal them.
In the months that followed, some aspects of Viganò’s claims were vindicated, though in some cases it became clear that Vigano’s language was imprecise or exaggerated. Other aspects of his claims are likely to be unverifiable unless the Vatican addresses them in its comprehensive report on McCarrick, whose release has been anticipated for months.
But Viganò’s original missive also called for the resignation of Pope Francis, and made allegations about the sexual orientation and activities of numerous church leaders, suggesting a homosexual “current” or network of bishops who assured mutual promotion and protection of one another.
When his first letter was published, numerous bishops, including leaders of the U.S. bishops’ conference, called for investigation into the claims made by Vigano about McCarrick. Several U.S. bishops vouched for the archbishop’s integrity, while others called aspects of his letter into question.
Viganò subsequently went into “hiding,” apparently in response to threats against his life. The archbishop is believed by some to be living with family members in the United States. He makes himself available only to selected media outlets, and, apart from additional open letters and selected interviews, does not usually respond to questions about his claims.
The archbishop released a second letter the month after his first, criticizing the pope’s response to his initial letter, and suggesting that certain Church leaders, including Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, had information that would corroborate his claims.
After exchanging additional public and polemical correspondence with Ouellet, Viganò began releasing letters on varied topics, including the conclave that elected Pope Francis, 2019’s pan-Amazonian synod, and other issues. While the archbishop continued to write, his letters did not continue to attract the level of attention that his initial correspondence had, and took on increasingly apocalyptic tones.
Cardinal Gerhard Muller, former prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has criticized Viganò’s letters, noting that “attacks” like Viganò’s letter “end up questioning the credibility of the Church and her mission.”
“No one has the right to indict the pope or ask him to resign!” Muller added.
Viganòs letters were initially met with a great deal of public support among lay and clerical U.S. Catholics, sparking even a line of coffee mugs and t-shirts which declared their owners part of “Team Viganò.”
By late 2019, however, Viganò’s new letters attracted attention mostly among traditionalist Catholic websites or supporters of his call for the resignation of Pope Francis. He did again not garner considerable mainstream Catholic attention again until controversy surrounding a disagreement with Cardinal Sarah over his coronavirus letter, and his subsequently released letters, including the one addressed to Trump.
Viganò, 79, is retired from any official ecclesiastical position. A longtime member of the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, he worked in positions in the government of the Vatican City State before, in 2011, he became apostolic nuncio, or papal representative, to the U.S. He held that position until 2016.
Viganò is accused, during his time as nuncio, of mishandling an investigation into former St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt, although Vigano denied charges that he ordered the investigation closed prematurely, and Bishop Andrew Cozzens, an auxiliary bishop in the Twin Cities, said in 2018 those charges were a misunderstanding.
Before he went to the U.S., Viganò was embroiled in controversy surrounding allegations of corruption in the Vatican City State, and was also involved in a family legal battle with his brother, also a priest, over the management of their father’s estate. Viganò was charged with withholding portions of a family inheritance from his brother, although family members have offered conflicting reports of the archbishop’s role in the affair.
For his part, Trump has faced criticism himself from some Catholics in recent weeks.
The president was criticized June 9 after he suggested on Twitter that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old activist who was hospitalized after being pushed to the ground by Buffalo police officers, might have been an “ANTIFA provocateur.” Gugino is active in the Catholic Worker Movement founded by Servant of God Dorothy Day.
On June 2, Trump made a visit to the St. John Paul II National Shrine amid controversy over his response to George Floyd protests Archbishop Gregory roundly condemned the visit, which in turn prompted Viganò’s denunciation of Gregory.
At the same time, the president’s June 2 signing of an executive order on international religious liberty has drawn praise from bishops and religious freedom advocates in some parts of the world.
Viganò’s letter to Trump has attracted attention in the QAnon community, a social media based group of conspiracy theorists who believe that Trump is under attack by the “deep state” in an apocalyptic war of good against evil, in which Trump is using the presidency to wage a secret war against a global ring of Satanic pedophiles.
Since Trump’s tweet about Viganò, some figures in the QAnon community have characterized Viganò’s letter as a confirmation of the group’s theories.
No U.S. bishops have yet responded to Trump’s tweet of Viganò’s letter, or to the letter itself.
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“[Leo] hasn’t really done all that much — it’s been one month — but there’s so far this sense of just sort of relief at a feeling of kind of stability and normalcy in the papal office” (Douthat).
Yes, we’re all enjoying the peace. Considering the past there’s an urgency reminding us we can’t surrender to peace. There’s a time for war. Much of the past must be undone. Letting it be reinforces the mistakes that continue to undermine the true appreciation of the Christ revelation.
Douthat does that sort of furtively in remarking on Leo’s alleged inscrutability. Let’s be realistic. We await with bated breath indicated by our pronouncements of how calm and holding ourselves together we are. While the honest admits the issue.
Youth are turning to Christ. Many may realize they’re at the red line of drug use and sex from which return is highly doubtful. My sense is that their reasoned decisions are likely inspired by the prayers of the many unknown saintly people out yonder praying for the conversion of souls. JD Vance, a recent convert, is an attractive model for youth. Again the ability of the convert to address life and morals with realistic candor.
I am a little tired of hearing about the “dignity of immigrants”. What about the dignity of the working stiff taxpayer??
People who break the law to bust into your country, then rely on the public dole, free medical care and other govt freebies which were intended for the citizens of the nation you broke into, are not entitled to any special treatment. Stealing from a grocery store, even if you “need” the food, is still stealing. I am tired of hearing those of us who believe in simple law and order derided as racists or unfeeling non-christian people. As far as I know there is nothing in Christianity that says you need to play punching bag to those who are taking advantage of you. MANY of us voluntarily support charities of various sorts to help others, as we have been taught to do. That should be enough. Largely unaddressed until recently are the crime statistics in which American citizens have been brutalized, raped and murdered by far too many immigrants who never should have been allowed to come here. Remember who let them in, the next time you vote.
Catholicism is NOT the same as Communism or socialism, in spite of liberal Catholics best efforts to make it so. Wealth transfer and other efforts to wrestle away what you have worked to earn to give it to others is what is done in Communist and socialist lands. Efforts to attack Trump or Vance because they believe in the rule of law is dishonest and unseemly.
LJ. Great set of comments. Hoping Leo XIV is not Pope Francis 2.0
So the billionaires deserve additional tax cuts? Cut Medicaid, cut SNAP, cut anything and everything for the poor, so Elon & co. can play less taxes? How Christian.
Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. But it should work the same way for those who emigrate. They should respect the country and people they relocate to and obey the laws.
Decent hardworking people who come here aren’t the problem. It’s the organized crime cartels that bring them here.
We will be competing with other countries for immigrants one day and we need to find ways to increase legal and safe immigration. We should be in charge of who comes to our border, not the cartels.
and don’t forget federal funds may be borrowed; which mean the next generation is being dumped on
I agree with you. I think that a “Catholicism” that allows us to be trampled, taken advantage of, or in danger of personal harm when we are attempting to help people (unless we are called by God to sacrifice our lives for the sake of leading others to Him) is not really Catholicism. It seems to me to be what some parents do when attempting to raise their children without ever rebuking them or holding them accountable for their misbehavior–the result is a spoiled brat who often grows up to be a very spoiled adult who believes the world owes them a living and sometimes, turns to criminal acts to make sure that they get what they believe “special people” like them are entitled to.
I do believe that we desperately need to replenish our population in the U.S., which has been diminishing at an alarming rate–legal abortion especially has resulted in the killing of millions of babies over the last several decades! As a senior citizen, I fear that when I am in need of special care for aging infirmities, there will not be enough younger people to provide that care! Immigrants who intend to become good American citizens and work for their living need to be welcomed into the U.S. with open arms, as some of our natural-born American citizens seem to be afraid to have babies and raise children these days! I think that some people have become convinced that unless they can live in huge homes and enjoy the “HGTV” lifestyles, they will be unhappy! I think some of the happiest times of my life have been when my late husband and I and our two children lived in tiny apartments and ancient houses that we were never able to afford to “update!”
Lj : Neither is the Church Democratic and Capitalistic!!!
Douthat proposes that it makes more sense to believe rather than to not believe. As to what one should believe he, himself, acquiesces into “inscrutability.”
Reawakened by Douthat to the impulse of inborn and universal natural law, why shouldn’t the sleepwalking West just settle into any of a smorgasbord of natural religions and “beliefs”? Rather than, say, receiving “faith” in the person of Jesus Christ? Faith, as if we have to deal with the historical and historic self-disclosure (!) of the Triune God?
As for Pope Leo XIV’s alleged “inscrutability,” well, it’s the Allah of Islam who is inscrutable. And, therefore eclectic and arbitrary, and the source of alleged revelations that “abrogate” one another. The rolling consensus of process theology in a turban! Or, as some might say: ersatz synodality by another name?
Is the Augustinian pope “inscrutable”? Of the alternative “coherence” of faith & reason(!) as the incarnate LOGOS, it was St. Augustine himself who said “we can say things differently, but we can’t say different things.”
Vance really shouldn’t talk about Catholic belief until he renounces his mentor Jarvin.