Pope Francis covered up McCarrick abuse, former US nuncio testifies

Whatever happens we must strive to enter through the narrow gate. The perimeters are the Eucharist and the rosary. These are tramlines or guide rails so to speak. We cannot go wrong if we navigate a course between these guiding lights. If we aren’t already doing so we need to make the Eucharist, both at mass and adoration the centre of our lives and pray the rosary. Only from the Eucharist can we draw the strength we will need to persevere in these extremely trying times. Our Lady will never let us go astray if we stay close to her.

Times are extremely trying and many will be tempted to throw in the towel. But like St. Peter we must say to Our Lord, “ to whom shall we go Lord for you have the words of eternal life”?

 

St. John Bosco had a vision of a ship on a stormy sea, being battered and tossed on the waves, taking on water on all sides. He noticed two columns, one surmounted by the Host and the other by the scapular and rosary. By steering between these two columns, the ship, that is the Church, successfully navigated its way through the storm. We are in a battle royal between heaven and the powers and principalities of the dark places and the battle is raging. The ship is creaking and groaning under the crashing waves and the roaring winds. Timbers are being splintered and whole planks are being torn off. We must cling to the rigging no matter what. It is hard to see now the bright dawn when all around us chaos and mayhem seem to have the upper hand. But God is pruning His Church. The pruning is, like surgery, excruciatingly painful but it is necessary. Stay strong in faith, keeping hold of the Eucharist in one hand and Our Lady’s Rosary in the other.

 

Great post, David.
Thank you very much.

 

You are welcome Heavenly Hosts and thank you. It’s certainly a trying time for us all.

 

Yes, trying times. We have been sorely tried with very bad weather for months and I just realized how weary I am of it all.
A priest nearby has a three-hour Adoration while he is hearing Confession on a weeknight. It’s really nice to have that during the week!

 

Well, I'm sorry if I misunderstood your post to mean that you were one of those supporting calls from the laity for the Pope to resign. Plenty of Catholic laity are calling on the Pope to resign and plenty of enemies of the Church are not just predicting it's demise but relishing that prospect. To them, a Pope resigning under pressure signals the death knell of the Church. While I think we should be wary of papolatry, I also think we should be careful not to feed those who would use a crisis in the Church to attack its hierarchical structure, especially the papacy. Pope Francis could surprise us all by stepping up to the mark and defending the Deposit of Faith in clear, unequivocal language. Even if he doesn't, the Church will most likely limp along as it is through the end of his papacy and possibly a few more papacies.

I don't believe in a New Era of the Divine Will and I'm not convinced there will be any spectacular warning. The institutional Church is more than the Pope and some Bishops. It's more than a single synod, no matter how special that synod is. Catholics have always known that some day the Church will exist in the wilderness. A smaller, poorer Church doesn't equate to the end of the institutional Church except to those who equate the institution founded by Jesus with worldly trappings accumulated over centuries. That the Church may shrink in Europe and the US just as it did in the Middle East doesn't mean that it won't continue to grow in Africa and Asia.

We have always been called to grow in faith and told that we should work out our salvation in fear and trembling by way of keeping the Commandments, prayer, receiving the Sacraments and doing the corporal works of mercy. Warning or no warning, that's also the means by which we will receive the graces to help us withstand persecution or martyrdom. It worked for the first Christians and it will work for us.

 

Ditto!!

 

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/vatican-rocked-by-leak-of-300-page-dossier

Vatican Rocked by Leak of 300-Page Dossier
Supposed file on Cdl. Kevin Farrell implicates Pope Francis

by Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D. • ChurchMilitant.com • September 13, 2018 348 Comments

ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Vatican is reeling from news that the 300-page dossier containing names of members of the gay lobby — a dossier some believe led to Pope Benedict's resignation in 2013 — has been leaked to the media.

Il Fatto Quotidiano, an Italian journal read by Vatican officials, is confirming it has seen the 300-page dossier. "The report contains a detailed and disturbing picture of the moral and material corruption of the clergy, with names, surnames and circumstances," writes Francesca Fagnani.

We are ... able to view a document on papal letterhead included in the investigation, and here we publish an excerpt: It is a list of prelates and laymen who belong to the so-called gay lobby, which through blackmail and secrets could affect, or have conditioned, positions and careers (theirs, like those of others).

We will not reveal the names shown in the list, but we can confirm that among the names there are people removed by the Pope, others moved from office, others who still hold important positions in strategic organs for the Vatican, such as Propaganda Fide and even the Secretariat of State.

Among those implicated in the dossier is none other than Cdl. Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, who has repeatedly claimed he knew nothing of former housemate Abp. Theodore McCarrick's homosexual predation, although they lived together on the same floor of the same house for six years in Washington, D.C.

The report contains a detailed and disturbing picture of the moral and material corruption of the clergy, with names, surnames and circumstances.Tweet
"Farrell was appointed auxiliary bishop of Washington precisely because it was McCarrick who wanted him as a deputy," Fagnani reports in a September 4 article focusing on a "Farrell dossier." "The two were part of the 'magic circle' of Pope Francis."

[A case] on the auxiliary bishop of Washington, Kevin Joseph Farrell, is said to have been filed at the Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith in the Vatican, at the Dicastery that is responsible for investigating sexual and other crimes against good morals, which, if not rebutted, would fall squarely on the Pope like a boulder. Farrell [was] appointed directly by Bergoglio to head the Dicastery of the Family.

In response to Il Fatto Quotidiano's queries with regard to the existence of a file on Farrell, the Vatican is refusing to confirm or deny.

"There will be no communication," was the response from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "The Vatican therefore does not deny Il Fatto Quotidiano, but chooses the strategy of silence as for McCarrick," Fagani writes.

Pope Benedict's sudden resignation in 2013 is allegedly linked to the 300-page dossier; some media reported that Benedict chose to resign the same day he received the dossier, the result of findings of an investigation commissioned by the Holy Father into clerical corruption and malfeasance.

The investigation, itself, led by Cardinals Julián Herranz, Jozef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi, is said to have uncovered sins involving sex and financial corruption. "Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments," according to La Repubblica in February 2013.

"The investigation of the three cardinals Herranz-Tomko-De Giorgi has so far remained top secret," Fagnani writes in her report. "However, a small but not small circle of people has had the opportunity to read it, and this already before the Conclave, to give a hand to the Holy Spirit who would then take Bergoglio to the papal throne. To draw up the dossier, tens of priests and high priests were questioned, and documents of all kinds were collected."

"If the public were aware of the content of the final report it would be a disaster for the image of the Church, already devastated in the whole world by sexual scandals," she added.

If the public were aware of the content of the final report it would be a disaster for the image of the Church, already devastated in the whole world by sexual scandals.Tweet
The hope after Benedict's resignation was that a younger, stronger pope would be elected to help clean up the Church; thus Francis was chosen with the understanding he'd be a man of reform. But under his papacy, some senior clergy believe conditions have worsened, not improved.

Vaticanista Ed Pentin reported in 2017 that, according to a senior member of the curia, "the extent of homosexual practice in the Vatican has 'never been worse,' despite efforts begun by Benedict XVI to root out sexual deviancy from the curia ... ."

Alarm at the homosexual crisis in the Church has reached fever pitch, with the outing of Abp. Theodore McCarrick — the very face of the response to the 2002 sex abuse crisis — as a homosexual predator, followed by the bombshell Pennsylvania grand jury report revealing 301 predator priests in only six U.S. dioceses, compounded further by the shock of Abp. Carlo Maria Vigano's testimony revealing an entrenched "homosexual current" in the Church in the highest ranks, reaching even up to Pope Francis himself.

 

Argentine Author on Pope Francis: Viganò Is Speaking the Truth
Church Militant speaks with Catholic historian and biographer Dr. Antonio Caponnetto
by Juliana Freitag • ChurchMilitant.com • September 13, 2018 105 Comments
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news...-on-pope-francis-vigano-is-speaking-the-truth

In light of the staggering revelations of Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò, currently hunted by the Holy See's intelligence services for asking Pope Francis to resign for the cover-up of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's homosexual predation, Church Militant reached out to Dr. Antonio Caponnetto, an accomplishedCatholic historian and doctor in philosophy from Buenos Aires — and one who knows more about Pope Francis when he was Cdl. Jorge Bergoglio than anyone else.
Caponnetto is a prolific researcher and lecturer who's written extensively about liberation theology in South America, but is mostly known for his book La Iglesia Traicionada (The Church Betrayed), a first-hand account of living under the reign of Cdl. Bergoglio during the period he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. The book was published in 2010, three years before Cdl. Bergoglio became Pope Francis, and has been quoted in a book by Italian Catholic historian Roberto de Mattei as well as by Henry Sire in his bombshell book The Dictator Pope.
Dr. Antonio Caponnetto then wrote a second book about Pope Francis in 2017 called No lo conozco: Del Iscariotismo a la Apostasía (I Don't Know Him: From Iscariotism to Apostasy), in which he consolidated his knowledge of Pope Francis' modus operandi, this time evaluating the pontificate.

(video)

In a 2017 interview, Caponnetto spoke about the process of writing La Iglesia Traicionada: "[W]hat went through my soul … was an immense pain, a lacerating urge to scream from the rooftops, after realizing that the pastor was actually a wolf. And now we suffer the loot of the doctrine, the theft of orthodoxy, the stealing of the truth."
To Church Militant, Dr. Caponnetto said, "I have written two books about Bergoglio. I have also written many articles and given many conferences. My first book was a warning. But, as it often happens, I wasn't heard. I was persecuted and offended. Then, finally, the facts proved me right. It's all very sad, but that's how things happened."

(pic)

La Iglesia Traicionada confirms the problems in the current papacy: Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio's ambiguous behavior has always pushed heterodoxy and confused the faithful. Here are a few telling extracts from the book:
Bergoglio needs to prove that he is a humble, modest ... man. A neighborhood kid who can chat about football and tango (which he does, abundantly), the farthest from a Christian Prince as possible. [He acts] in accordance with the times and the tastes ... not with the magisterial attitude of a master of truth by ministry. He values doubt and hesitation.

Still on Pope Francis' "obsession" with his own image:

Bergoglio recklessly plays the "low-profile" game. ... His self-worship in showing off as an ordinary man is a manifestation of pride, not for the nature of what is flaunted, but for the vice of ostentation. This is one of Bergoglio's psychological obsessions: Why would one who possesses true humility give consent to the publication of pages and pages of praise to his virtue?

Dr. Caponnetto also mentions several of Bergoglio's liaisons with enemies of the Catholic Church: "A first example is ... Esther Ballestrino de Careaga. This woman and her entire family were activists of Marxist terrorism in Paraguay. Careaga was among the founders of the group 'Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo' ... whose real mission was international Marxist guerrilla. But for Bergoglio, this 'sympathiser of Communism,' in his own words, is 'an extraordinary woman,' who 'taught me so much about politics.'"
Another radical leftist also charmed Pope Francis in Italy: Emma Bonino, a George Soros associate and human rights activist who performed over 10,000 abortions with a bicycle pump device, has been called "one of Italy's forgotten greats" by the Pontiff.
La Iglesia Traicionada also mentions that "several sources, one of which I've verified directly and whose claims have never been refuted, have revealed that Bergoglio agreed to the legalization of the so-called homosexual 'civil union' as an alleged lesser evil preferable to the greater evil of 'same-sex marriage.'"

In Italy, with the complicit silence of the Pope, homosexual civil unions were sanctioned in 2016, despite the relentless effort of the Catholic laity to stop the extremely unpopular bill. Catholic committee Difendiamo i nostri figli ("We stand for our children") gathered two million people in Rome to protest against the law. Many tried to make sense of Pope Francis' complete silence, while the most vocal prelate was Abp. Nunzio Galantino, at the time secretary of the Italian Bishops' Conference, where he was known as "the Pope's man."

Everything he says and does inflicts evil upon the Church.Tweet
Galantino's dubious statements implied that the position of committee Difendiamo i nostri figli was "too radical," and overall his declarations have all been interpreted as support for the bill. He has been equally ambiguous about abortion and euthanasia, but he is always alarmingly clear when it comes to his heterodox positions. He speaks openly of his admiration for Martin Luther, even calling the Reformation "an event of the Holy Spirit."

Asked about the veracity of Abp. Viganò's allegations, Dr. Caponnetto's offered his final comments to Church Militant:

What Abp. Viganò said about Bergoglio is the absolute truth. There's a lot of evidence that proves that Pope Francis covers up for homosexuals, degenerates and pedophiles [Dr. Caponnetto's emphasis]. I don't know if this crisis will put an end to Bergoglio's infamous management. If God allows, it will. I also agree that he should resign, definitely. Everything he says and does inflicts evil upon the Church.

 

Breaking News Special Report: Francis Papacy Rocked
Vatican gay lobby exposed

by Church Militant • ChurchMilitant.com • September 13, 2018 103 Comments
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news...ing-news-special-report-francis-papacy-rocked

(video)

Italian Media have unearthed details of the much sought-after secret dossier compiled during the last months of Pope Benedict's pontificate, which names various names, uncovering the homosexual network operating within the Vatican and around the globe.

These revelations now threaten to shake the Francis papacy to its very foundations.

At a time when Francis and his inner circle have already been rocked by a non-stop flow of charges that senior Church officials — including Francis himself — have covered up sexual abuse of minors and young adults abuse mostly homosexual in nature, this latest revelation drops on Rome like a nuclear explosion.

Church Militant, along with multiple media outlets, reported back in late 2012 that a 300-page dossier revealing the existence of the gay lobby had been delivered to Pope Benedict in response to what had been called the Vatileaks affair.

Three cardinals had been appointed by Benedict to get to the bottom of the leaks and during that investigation, the three cardinals came across credible information about the homosexual lobby in the Vatican and changed the direction of their report accordingly. They presented their final dossier to Pope Benedict in two red leather-bound volumes, and a few months later he resigned.

Now, almost six years later, the Italian media outfit

Il Fatto Quotidiano, a respected media outlet has published a story saying they have seen the dossier and it is extensively damaging to the Pope and especially Cdl. Kevin Farrell.

Here are three quotes — translated from the original Italian by Church Militant — from the article detailing very important information about the dossier:

[A case] on the auxiliary bishop of Washington, Kevin Joseph Farrell is said to have been filed at the Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith in the Vatican, at the dicastery that is responsible for investigating sexual and other crimes against good morals, which, if not rebutted, would fall squarely on the Pope like a boulder. Farrell [was] appointed directly by Bergoglio to head the Dicastery of the Family.

That, of course, would directly implicate Pope Francis in promoting yet another man into a position of power when even though he had advance knowledge of moral crimes — the first being Theodore McCarrick, who was the housemate of Cdl. Farrell when they were together in Washington, D.C.

A second quote from the Italian article:

The report contains a detailed and disturbing picture of the moral and material corruption of the clergy, with names, surnames and circumstances. We were exceptionally able to examine a document on papal letterhead contained in the investigative report, whence we here publish an excerpt: it is a list of prelates and laymen who belong to the so-called gay lobby, which, by means of blackmail and secrets, could condition, or have conditioned, positions and careers.

The article explicitly states for the first time it has been revealed on papal letterhead that the Vatican itself admits of a powerful gay lobby within its own walls.

And a third quote from the article:

If the public were to become cognizant of the content of the final report, it would be a disaster for the image of the Church, already devastated by sexual scandals throughout the whole world. ... [And now] Francis cannot even count on some of his most powerful friends and supporters, overwhelmed by sex scandals themselves or for having covered up such behavior: from McCarrick to Farrell, from Cardinal Roger Mahony to Cardinal Godfried Danneels.

When the newspaper questioned the Vatican for comment, they were told in yet another stonewalling effort from churchmen, "There will be no communication."

To show the great fear that has gripped the Vatican as a result, consider the title of the article: "Shock in the Vatican: All the Names on the List of the Gay Lobby."

Consider that in the space of less than three weeks, the Pope has had his former U.S. ambassador Abp. Viganò publicly testify that the Pope knew about McCarrick's evil and lifted sanctions against him anyway; has worked quietly behind the scenes to formulate as graceful an exit plan as possible for the now disgraced Cdl. Donald Wuerl; had to, just today, announce the retirement of an American bishop credibly accused of sexual immorality; had to meet with a delegation of American cardinals and bishops today who are wanting a full-blown investigation into Viganò's claims about the Pope and other senior churchmen.

And then, of course, this, Pope Francis and his homosexualist cabal in Rome may begin to feel like the walls of the Vatican are starting to close in on them.

It's just after midnight in Rome right now as of this Church Militant live report, and Church Militant will have much more for you tomorrow and in the coming days on this news, which can only be classified as devastating for the Francis pontificate.

 

So when is the Francis Pontificate going to act devastated? Waiting.

 

Very important development, if true, thanks for posting it SgCatholic.

So according to the current pope´s logic Pope Benedict, who commissioned the dossier, and the three cardinals appointed to carry out the investigation were doing the work of the devil.

Ah, now we know where evil in the church has come from... I have always suspected...

 

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/...al-critics-mccarrick-abuse-was-of-a-private-o

Cardinal Maradiaga rebukes papal critics: McCarrick abuse was ‘of a private order’
Jeanne Smits, Paris correspondent

Credit: Vatican News
SIGN THE PLEDGE: Support and pray for Archbishop Viganò. Sign the petition here.

September 14, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Ex-Cardinal McCarrick’s homosexual abuse of young priests and seminarians and Pope Francis’ alleged cover-up are “of a private order,” and a merely “administrative affair,” according to one of the Pope’s top advisers, Cardinal Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga. He made these remarks in a recent interview in one of the most revealing statements to date on the Viganò testimony.

In an interview published on Wednesday evening by Religion Digital, the religious portal of the Spanish-language news site Periodista Digital, Maradiaga once again strongly criticized Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for having gone public about McCarrick’s sexual predations and the protection the Cardinal received from the highest spheres in the Vatican, especially since Pope Francis was elected to the See of Peter and trusted the American prelate to help him choose new cardinals for the Church in the USA.

Asked to comment about Viganò’s call on the Pope to resign, Maradiaga answered:

It does not seem correct to me to transform something that is of the private order into bombshell headlines exploding all over the world and whose shrapnel is hurting the faith of many. I think this case of an administrative nature should have been made public in accordance with more serene and objective criteria, not with the negative charge of deeply bitter expressions.

Coming from Maradiaga, the head of the “C9” Council of Cardinals commissioned to help reform the Church and also a close friend of Francis, as Religion Digital takes care to underscore, it is a statement in which every word counts. If homosexual activity on the part of a top member of the Church's hierarchy such as McCarrick is a purely private matter that only needs to be managed at the administrative level, than it surely cannot be as bad as traditional believers are making out.

Misconduct of a private order – note that Maradiaga does not use the word “sin,” nor does he speak of priests’ grave obligation to live chastely as celibates – is something that should be taken care of outside the public eye, with at best confession and absolution and perhaps a private reprimand. Troubling the public order is what happens when crimes and lesser offences break criminal law as such. Only then do public authorities and representatives of the judiciary intervene to have the offender punished in the name of the public good.

The logic is quite clear: sexual abuse on minors, or at least adolescents who because of their age are not capable of agreeing to consensual relations is one thing, but having sexual relationships of whatever nature with adults is another, private matter. It is wrong, no doubt, but should not be made a fuss of and belongs to the internal forum. Where there is no penal crime, why should the Church see a transgression with dire consequences for its own Body?

Maradiaga’s minimizing of sexual misconduct, and of the perverting of seminarians and priests by a predator who is in a position of authority over them, is another sign that homosexual acts between consenting adults are in some circles no longer being regarded as a great evil that sullies the Church but as, at most, unfortunate falls comparable to other ordinary and widespread sins – disorders that a bit of paperwork will set right. It is another way of demanding silence.

Cardinal Maradiaga once more expressed his support for Francis, saying that he did not personally know what the Pope had done or not to take care of the situation, but insisting: “I believe that the Pope is a man of God always acts with faith and wisdom.”

In the same interview, Maradiaga was asked whether there is a “gay lobby” in the Vatican. His response was dismissive: “I get the impression that the notion of a gay lobby in the Vatican is out of proportion. It is something that exists much more in the ink of the newspapers than in reality. It's obvious to me that the objective of all these poison-laded expressions and smears is to hurt the Holy Father. But if there is no faith, the actors of this media circus will not renounce their slandering.”

Asked whether adult homosexuals should be allowed to become priests, he went on to say that all the Bishops Conferences in the world are “very clear about the absolute and apodictic principles of the Church, those for instance that have been established in the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis” about the formation of priests. In its revised version in 2016, the Ratio Fundamentalis states that men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be accepted into the priesthood, but Maradiaga did not clarify this.

When asked who was “behind Viganò,” Maradiaga answered: “I do not know what or who, a person or persons can be behind Mons. Viganò, but it should be – as with every servant of Christ and of the Church – the charity of the Gospel, the love of the truth and the Holy Spirit."

He also said that he was “greatly surprised” at having been quoted as a protector of McCarrick: “I consider that to be a gratuitous accusation. My best response is the facts, which is why I'm not concerned with defending myself as to what Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò has said.”

Religion Digital is the news source in which Maradiaga already attacked Edward Pentin at the end of August for having spread the Viganò testimony, calling himself “the victim of a hitman who practices media harrassment,” a laughable accusation to all those who know EWTN’s Vaticanist. He also said that Viganò had committed a “sin against the Holy Spirit.”

The Hispanic news source is also well known for its liberal standpoints and its eagerness to discredit conservative Catholics: the director of the religious platform of Religion Digital, José Manuel Vidal, is a former priest who at the time of Cardinal Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict complained about his being guilty of “destroying the idea of a more popular Church that would be faithful to the Gospel of the poor.” At that time, he also denounced Ratzinger’s work as a “Cerberus of the faith” who had helped the “Catholic right to set aside a whole innovative current in the pastoral, theological, catechetical and social areas,” in particular the tenets of Liberation Theology.

In September 2016, a conservative priest who up to then wrote a blog for Religion Digital – which prides itself on being the most widely read Spanish-speaking website on Catholic affairs – decided to step down, proclaiming that “Religion Digital was the website that had inflicted the most harm on the Catholic Church.” Father José Antonio Fortea, explaining that he had only stayed in order to reach out to people who need the chance to be in contact with something different from the site’s standpoints, decided to leave when José Manuel Vidal violently attacked the conservative Spanish bishop Munilla. He added that Religion Digital makes a big show of being faithful to the Pope while attacking the faith.

 

These comments give a new meaning to “tone deaf”. He really doesn’t get it does he.

 

All the men PF has chosen and/ or promoted to surround himself with, appear to be modernists, who do not give out holy vibes. They sound like politicians.

 

Funny you should use the phrase “tone deaf”. It is exactly the phrase I used to reply to an email I received from a friend informing me that our Archbishop Wilton Gregory has invited Fr. James Martin to speak at the Jesuit church in Atlanta in October about Catholics embracing the LGBTs in our diocese. TONE DEAF!!!!

 

Aother thought, "selective hearing" comes to mind.

 

The hypocrisy of our hierarchy and Catholics defending this shameful charade is mind boggling.

 

Arggghhhh
You can’t make this stuff up. Jesus have mercy!!

 

Archbishop Vigano has issued a new letter: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/b...estimony-responding-to-popes-silence-on-mccar It's dated 29th September, feast of St. Michael the Archangel. Evidently, he didn't want it released until then but the news outlets must have missed that in their rush to publish.

Here below is the official English text of Archbishop Viganò’s new testimony. It can also be accessed here as a PDF.

***









Tit. Archbishop of Ulpiana
Apostolic Nuncio

Scio Cui credidi
(2 Tim 1:12)

Before starting my writing, I would first of all like to give thanks and glory to God the Father for every situation and trial that He has prepared and will prepare for me during my life. As a priest and bishop of the holy Church, spouse of Christ, I am called like every baptized person to bear witness to the truth. By the gift of the Spirit who sustains me with joy on the path that I am called to travel, I intend to do so until the end of my days. Our only Lord has addressed also to me the invitation, “Follow me!”, and I intend to follow him with the help of his grace until the end of my days.

“As long as I have life, I will sing to the Lord,
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my song be pleasing to him;
For I rejoice in the Lord.”
(Psalm 103:33-34)

*****

It has been a month since I offered my testimony, solely for the good of the Church, regarding what occurred at the audience with Pope Francis on June 23, 2013 and regarding certain matters I was given to know in the assignments entrusted to me at the Secretariat of State and in Washington, in relation to those who bear responsibility for covering up the crimes committed by the former archbishop of that capital.

My decision to reveal those grave facts was for me the most painful and serious decision that I have ever made in my life. I made it after long reflection and prayer, during months of profound suffering and anguish, during a crescendo of continual news of terrible events, with thousands of innocent victims destroyed and the vocations and lives of young priests and religious disturbed. The silence of the pastors who could have provided a remedy and prevented new victims became increasingly indefensible, a devastating crime for the Church. Well aware of the enormous consequences that my testimony could have, because what I was about to reveal involved the successor of Peter himself, I nonetheless chose to speak in order to protect the Church, and I declare with a clear conscience before God that my testimony is true. Christ died for the Church, and Peter, Servus servorum Dei, is the first one called to serve the spouse of Christ.

Certainly, some of the facts that I was to reveal were covered by the pontifical secret that I had promised to observe and that I had faithfully observed from the beginning of my service to the Holy See. But the purpose of any secret, including the pontifical secret, is to protect the Church from her enemies, not to cover up and become complicit in crimes committed by some of her members. I was a witness, not by my choice, of shocking facts and, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (par. 2491), the seal of secrecy is not binding when very grave harm can be avoided only by divulging the truth. Only the seal of confession could have justified my silence.

Neither the pope, nor any of the cardinals in Rome have denied the facts I asserted in my testimony. “Qui tacet consentit” surely applies here, for if they deny my testimony, they have only to say so, and provide documentation to support that denial. How can one avoid concluding that the reason they do not provide the documentation is that they know it confirms my testimony?

The center of my testimony was that since at least June 23, 2013, the pope knew from me how perverse and evil McCarrick was in his intentions and actions, and instead of taking the measures that every good pastor would have taken, the pope made McCarrick one of his principal agents in governing the Church, in regard to the United States, the Curia, and even China, as we are seeing these days with great concern and anxiety for that martyr Church.

Now, the pope’s reply to my testimony was: “I will not say a word!” But then, contradicting himself, he has compared his silence to that of Jesus in Nazareth and before Pilate, and compared me to the great accuser, Satan, who sows scandal and division in the Church — though without ever uttering my name. If he had said: “Viganò lied,” he would have challenged my credibility while trying to affirm his own. In so doing he would have intensified the demand of the people of God and the world for the documentation needed to determine who has told the truth. Instead, he put in place a subtle slander against me — slander being an offense he has often compared to the gravity of murder. Indeed, he did it repeatedly, in the context of the celebration of the most Holy Sacrament, the Eucharist, where he runs no risk of being challenged by journalists. When he did speak to journalists, he asked them to exercise their professional maturity and draw their own conclusions. But how can journalists discover and know the truth if those directly involved with a matter refuse to answer any questions or to release any documents? The pope’s unwillingness to respond to my charges and his deafness to the appeals by the faithful for accountability are hardly consistent with his calls for transparency and bridge building.

Moreover, the pope’s cover-up of McCarrick was clearly not an isolated mistake. Many more instances have recently been documented in the press, showing that Pope Francis has defended homosexual clergy who committed serious sexual abuses against minors or adults. These include his role in the case of Fr. Julio Grassi in Buenos Aires, his reinstatement of Fr. Mauro Inzoli after Pope Benedict had removed him from ministry (until he went to prison, at which point Pope Francis laicized him), and his halting of the investigation of sex abuse allegations against Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor.

In the meantime, a delegation of the USCCB, headed by its president Cardinal DiNardo, went to Rome asking for a Vatican investigation into McCarrick. Cardinal DiNardo and the other prelates should tell the Church in America and in the world: did the pope refuse to carry out a Vatican investigation into McCarrick’s crimes and of those responsible for covering them up? The faithful deserve to know.

Contd. in next post/......​