‘These three elements – heresy, sodomy, and corruption – are so recurrent that they are almost a trademark of the deep state and of the deep church’
July 25, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has pointed out three elements that have become what he calls the trademark of the deep Church: “heresy, sodomy, and corruption.”
In a new wide-ranging interview with Vatican expert Marco Tosatti (read full interview below), the Vatican whistleblower speaks about the deeper significance of the case of former Cardinal McCarrick in relation to the “doctrinal crisis” the Church is facing.
“There is a very strict relationship between the doctrinal crisis of the Church and the immorality of the clergy, that scandalously reaches up to the highest levels of the hierarchy. But it is also apparent that this crisis is being used by the ultra-progressive wing not only to impose a false morality together with a false doctrine, but also to irremediably discredit the Holy Church and the Papacy before the faithful and the world, through the action of its own leaders,” stated the Archbishop.
Viganò says that a “gay lobby” has “infiltrated into the Church and that is literally terrified that good pastors will shed light on the influence that it exercises in the Secretariat of State, in the Congregations of the Roman Curia, in the Dioceses, and over the entire Church.”
“Bergoglio has surrounded himself with compromised and thus blackmailed personalities, whom he has no qualms about getting rid of as soon as they risk compromising him in his media image,” he said.
Viganò said that “these three elements – heresy, sodomy, and corruption – are so recurrent that they are almost a trademark of the deep state and of the deep church.”
Marco Tosatti’s introduction: The commitment of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America, to denounce the veil of silence and cover-ups in the management of abuse cases by members of the clergy, is well known. The spicy and annoyed response by the Vatican authorities – and in particular of various prelates – to the well-argued refutations of the combative prelate is also well known. In this interview, we investigate with His Excellency the developments in the case of former Cardinal McCarrick, also in light of a recent article at Church Militant entitled The McCarrick Bombshell. (1)
But before we get into the content of this article, let’s make a brief review. From February 21 to 24, 2019, a meeting was held in Rome of all of the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences on the topic of The Protection of Minors in the Church. (2) A few days earlier, on February 16, 2019, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced the dismissal from the clerical state of Theodore McCarrick, who was accused of other serious crimes, and added: “The Holy Father has recognized the definitive nature of this decision made in accord with law, rendering it a res iudicata (i.e., admitting of no further recourse).” (3)
Interview
Marco Tosatti: Your Excellency, can you tell us what the news is on the McCarrick case?
Abp. C.M. Viganò: I fear that there is no news, and this is precisely the news. With the reduction of McCarrick to the lay state, it was hoped to put an end to an age-old affair that came to light with my testimony only in 2018, but everything possible has been done so that the details and results of the process did not emerge. The deception perpetrated through the strategy of proceeding administratively rather than judicially, as well as the decision of Bergoglio to authoritatively confirm the sentence [so that there was no further recourse], prevented not only McCarrick’s objective crimes from coming to light, but also the responsibility of those who for years contributed to hiding the nature and extent of the crimes he committed, protecting his accomplices and those who, with their silence, have covered up his crimes. In this way the conviction of the culprit did not clarify the obscure details. As a simple layman, Mr. McCarrick now enjoys a total freedom of movement and action, and he is still capable of intervening at every level: on the ecclesial level – even with those who covered up for him and supported him, in the Vatican and elsewhere; on the political, social and financial level, by means of the people who remained in contact with him and who received favors from him. The reduction to the lay state does not constitute in any way a medicinal punishment (this is only the necessary premise, because of the proven indignity of the offender), it does not include any form of reparative penance, nor does it render justice to the victims, but rather it grants to Mr. McCarrick the ability to continue undisturbed in his criminal activity, including sexual predation.
The administrative procedure also prevented the victims from being heard, while the testimonies gathered only recently by the lawyer Jeffrey Lena, the legal representative of the Holy See, seem to have been written under dictation: those who have suffered harassment give excuses for the delay in the publication of the Report, attributing it to the large volume of testimonies, (4) with indulgent and justifying tones that are difficult to reconcile with the extreme gravity of the crimes contested by the accused. (5) It seems that some victims, protected by a pseudonym, have lent themselves to an operation aimed at lightening the responsibility of the Holy See and validating the narrative that it maintains before public opinion. There is also the suspicion that these anonymous testimonies are pure fiction. In any case, this is a deception that must be denounced forcefully, because if the corruption of an individual prelate is a scandal, the guilty silence of the one who represents the Church is even more so. If these episodes had been verified under the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, they would have unleashed the fury of the media: their demure attitude of understanding towards Jorge Mario reveals the complicit attitude of mainstream information.
Marco Tosatti: The convocation of the summit at the Vatican was announced as the occasion of giving a firm and determined response to the clergy sexual scandals. In his introductory address, Pope Francis had declared: “In this meeting, we sense the weight of the pastoral and ecclesial responsibility that obliges us to discuss together, in a synodal, frank and in-depth manner, how to confront this evil afflicting the Church and humanity. The holy People of God looks to us, and expects from us not simple and predictable condemnations, but concrete and effective measures to be undertaken. We need to be concrete.” (6)
Abp. Viganò: The solemn proclamations which preceded, accompanied, and followed this meeting absolutely did not lead to any concrete practical action, as was hoped for. (7) Just as during the meeting no answer was given to the legitimate and insistent demands made by journalists to Bergoglio on August 26, 2018, after my denunciation. (8)
With regard to the content of the interventions at the summit, it seems that even the clergy sexual scandals, instead of toughening the penalties and making the interventions more incisive, have only led to almost obsessive repetition about the new “synodal” aspect of the Church, which corresponds to a precise intention to change her constitution in a democratic key. The Archbishop of Chicago Blase Cupich – a friend of Theodore McCarrick and the president of the Vatican summit – focused his own intervention at the summit on “synodality” as a necessary passage of “structural, legal and institutional reform” (9) of action only nominally intended to stem abuse.
Marco Tosatti: In what way can “synodality” help the bishops to resolve the problem of clergy abuse?
Abp. Viganò: The proposal to establish a commission of independent lay persons who would have overseen the work of the bishops, formulated during the plenary assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in November 2018, was blocked by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. (10) This intervention by the Vatican disavowed the proclamations of “synodality” as soon as the decisions of the Bishops’ Conferences did not coincide with what Rome wanted. However, I consider His Eminence Cardinal Ouellet to have been merely the executor of maneuvers that were imposed on him from higher up.
Marco Tosatti: Isn’t it a good thing that the Vatican is keeping decisions that involve doctrinal and moral questions to itself?
Abp. Viganò: The authority of the Roman Pontiff, which expresses itself also through the Roman Congregations, cannot obviously be delegated to merely consultative organs that do not have any jurisdiction and that are not a part of the hierarchical structure of the Church as Christ instituted it: on this point we need to be clear. However, it is significant that the “synodal path” hoped for by the highest authorities in Rome does not encounter any obstacle, except for the moments in which it risks becoming embarrassing in the media, as in the case of a special commission appointed to receive denunciations against the bishops.
This call for “synodality” is a theme that is dear to the progressive theological current that wants to strip away the hierarchical structure of the Church. In this regard, the recent articles of Massimo Fagggioli are very clarifying. He is a professor at Villanova University, where on October 11, 2013 then-Cardinal McCarrick affirmed that he had supported the election of Cardinal Bergoglio during the General Congregations prior to the Conclave that had been held just a few months earlier, and that he had spoken with “a very influential Italian gentleman” (11) who had confided to him that within the span of five years the new pope would reform the Church.
It ought to arouse alarm that the same school today is giving disturbing signs of dissatisfaction with the work of Bergoglio, whose pontificate is defined as being “in crisis” by “deluded people” (12) – perhaps because the five years that McCarrick alluded to have not yielded the results they hoped for.
Marco Tosatti: In the address Cardinal Reinhard Marx gave about the Vatican summit, he said: “Proper legal proceedings serve to establish the truth, and form the basis for imposing a punishment which is appropriate for the relevant offence. People in the Church also need to see how this judge comes to the sentence and what the sentence is; nearly all are secret, we cannot see this. I think that in our situation it is not good. In addition, they establish trust in the organization and its leadership. Lingering doubts about the proper conduct of court proceedings only harm the reputation and the functioning of an institution. This principle also applies to the Church.” (13)
Abp. Viganò: The publication of the procedural acts should be one of the cornerstones of the operation of transparency and honesty towards the victims of abuse by members of the clergy. It appears evident to me that the words of Cardinal Marx have been disregarded, beginning with the McCarrick case, precisely through Bergoglio’s initiative.
I further recall that Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the President of the United States Bishops’ Conference, was disavowed with little regard by the Vatican intervention, which replaced him at the meeting in Rome the following February with Cardinals Blase Cupich and Joseph William Tobin, who are also not exempt from suspicions on their own account. These interferences, clearly desired from on high, have created a media image that does not correspond to reality, in which Bergoglio is presented as the architect of a non-existent reform, for mere propaganda purposes. Even the request made by Francis for the resignation of the entire Chilean Episcopate is part of a facade operation that is clearly denied by the facts.
I think that the two-fold measure reserved for the American and French Bishops’ Conferences is emblematic: on the U.S. side, Bergoglian interventionism prevented an operation of transparency by authority; while on the French side, it allowed clear violations of canon and civil law, permitting the investigations of the ecclesiastical forum to be entrusted to a Masonic judge who is also in favor of euthanasia. The Jacobin spirit in pursuing French clerics accused of child molestation fails however to recognize the responsibility of the Ordinaries and religious Superiors, who are guilty of those same cover-ups that are consolidating in practice also in Rome.
Marco Tosatti: And yet we have also heard the Pontiff recall, in his final address, the words he had already spoken to the Roman Curia in 2018: “The Church will never try to cover up or underestimate any case.”
Abp. Viganò: This solemn affirmation is disavowed by the most emblematic case, the very case of Theodore McCarrick, and makes us think that other interests may have led to the decision to liquidate the matter through the administrative path, and, even more gravely, without the publication of the judicial acts.
Marco Tosatti: What are those other interests, in your opinion?
Abp. Viganò: They want to focus attention on the abuse of minors, moving it away from the clear and dutiful condemnation of the homosexual behaviors which are often the cause of these abuses. For Bergoglio and his entourage sodomy is not a sin that cries out for vengeance in the presence of God, as the Catechism teaches. Bergoglio’s words on this topic – and even more the actions and words of those who surround him – unfortunately confirm that an operation of legitimization of homosexuality is currently underway, and that prelates and theologians are carrying this discussion forward who have manifested without equivocation that they are unfaithful to Catholic teaching.
Cardinal Tobin himself – whose embarrassing messages on his cell phone speak for themselves (14) – has clearly stated that he does not agree with the condemnation of sodomy present in the Catechism, refusing to define homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered.” (15) And these statements follow Cardinal Tobin’s support for the book Building a Bridge by Father James Martin, S.J., that has the same content. Thus we find a cardinal who is a friend of McCarrick lined up in favor of the LGBT movements and the Jesuit whom Bergoglio appointed as a Consultor of the Secretariat for Communications of the Holy See, even inviting him to speak at the World Encounter of Families in Dublin in 2018 and receiving him in audience. (16)
Cardinal Cupich has expressed himself many times in favor of homosexuals, and during the Synod on Youth – to which he was sent to participate by direct appointment of the Pope without having been elected to represent the American bishops – the controversial theme of homosexual relations was inserted into the Instrumentum Laboris even though no group of young people had requested it. I recall, en passant, that Cupich was imposed on the See of Chicago by Bergoglio, against the opinion of the Nunciature.
The interests are therefore clearly those of the “gay lobby” that has infiltrated into the Church and that is literally terrified that good pastors will shed light on the influence that it exercises in the Secretariat of State, in the Congregations of the Roman Curia, in the Dioceses, and over the entire Church. The obscene, even sacrilegious homoerotic fresco that Archbishop Paglia commissioned for the cathedral of Terni (17) is an arrogant ideological manifesto that no Authority has ever censured or deplored; the excessive financial affairs of the Substitute of the Secretariat of State Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra (18) – tied to Cardinal Maradiaga (involved in the scandal of homosexual abuse by his auxiliary bishop, Juan José Pineda, without there being news of any ecclesiastical initiative against him) – and the very grave accusations de Sexto that weigh on him (19) and that I have amply denounced, (20) have not in any way interrupted his cursus honorum in the Vatican; the same holds for Bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta, (21) whom Bergoglio has promoted and, while a criminal trial is still pending, has recently reappointed as Assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. (22) After the order to bring all the current accounts of the dioceses and religious congregations of the world to APSA, Zanchetta finds himself managing the finances of the Church (being able to boast in his own curriculum of having the authoritative diploma of an electrician) and being at the same time easily the object of internal and external blackmail. (23) And let’s not forget the work of Archbishop Ilson de Jesus Montanari, Secretary of the Congregation of Bishops, Secretary of the Sacred College and vice-Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, in the name of and on behalf of those who elevated him to the highest ranks of the Roman Curia as a reward for his fidelity.
I believe it is essential to clarify once and for all the close link between sodomy and pedophilia, which is also confirmed by the statistics themselves: a link that the Vatican summit scrupulously kept silent about in order not to offend the current mentality that is widespread even among many prelates. But it would be hypocritical and culpable to condemn pedophilia in the wake of current civil legislation without equally condemning sodomy, which today’s aligned thought does not consider to be criminally relevant but which the Church identifies among the sins that cry out for vengeance in the presence of God.
But there is also another interest, of a political nature, that should not be underestimated…
