Viganò vs the Vatican: ‘I have been deceived’

A tiny fraction of the 1 billion baptized Catholics worldwide know who Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is. This despite the Italian prelate making global headlines in 2018, accusing Pope Francis of, among other alleged failings, abetting clergy sex abuse by lifting sanctions imposed by his predecessor Benedict 16th on an American cardinal who preyed on minors and seminarians.

Now, Viganò, in hiding since he criticized Francis, is back in the news. His June 9 essay argued that the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965, also called Vatican 2, the Church’s most influential ecumenical council since the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s, had led Catholicism astray with this sweeping reforms in many aspects of Church life and doctrine.

Echoing many conservatives rejecting Vatican 2, Viganò declared: “The Council was used to legitimize the most aberrant doctrinal deviations, the most daring liturgical innovations and the most unscrupulous abuses, all while Authority [presumably Pope St. Paul 6th] remained silent. This Council was so exalted that it was presented as the only legitimate reference for Catholics, clergy and bishops, obscuring and connoting with a sense of contempt the doctrine that the Church had always authoritatively taught, and prohibiting the perennial liturgy [traditional Latin Mass] that for millennia had nourished the faith of an uninterrupted line of faithful, martyrs and saints.”

He adds: “Among other things, this Council has proven to be the only one that has caused so many interpretative problems and so many contradictions with respect to the preceding Magisterium, while there is not one other council — from the Council of Jerusalem to Vatican 1 — that does not harmonize perfectly with the entire Magisterium or that needs so much interpretation.”

Prophetic or off the deep end?

Like most Catholics, this writer has neither the theological expertise nor the ecclesiastical authority to assess Archbishop Viganò’s arguments against Vatican 2 and its half-century of massive alterations in Church matters, from the modern Mass displacing the Latin rite established for centuries, to the dropping of the doctrine, proclaimed since Apostolic times, that there is no salvation outside the Church established by Jesus Christ.

One will just cite two views on Viganò’s essay, both from respected Catholic minds critical of Pope Francis. The chief of a conservative Catholic website, who had found some of the archbishop’s recent statements as overly politicized, found the latest essay as written by “Viganò the prophet.”

“This may be the most important thing he’s written,” writes Steve Skojec, founding publisher and executive director or OnePeterFive.com. “In today’s text, we see the calmest, most succinct, most direct acknowledgment of what the Second Vatican Council has wrought that I have ever read from a member of the episcopacy.”

In a private email, by contrast, a theologian-priest highly respected in America and elsewhere, opined: “While there are some problems with some of what Vatican 2 said, it is still an ecumenical council — though not all of what it said was de Fide [according to the Faith]. I think Viganò in his condemnation of the Council has fallen off the deep end. It is not good. He has made it hard for others to legitimately criticize what is going on [in the Church]. So, I would not endorse what he says about the Council.”

For those who wish to further ponder the fine points of Archbishop Viganò’s article, the full text follows Skojec’s commentary here: https://onepeterfive.com/vigano-vatican-ii-marked-the-beginning-of-a-false-parallel-church/. And what many, if not most Catholics, including this writer, may find most disturbing is Viganò’s admission that many Church authorities like him have gotten things wrong and misled the faithful:

“I confess it with serenity and without controversy: I was one of the many people who, despite many perplexities and fears [about Vatican II] which today have proven to be absolutely legitimate, trusted the authority of the Hierarchy with unconditional obedience.

In reality, I think that many people, including myself, did not initially consider the possibility that there could be a conflict between obedience to an order of the Hierarchy and fidelity to the Church herself. What made tangible this unnatural, indeed I would even say perverse, separation between the Hierarchy and the Church, between obedience and fidelity, was certainly this most recent [Francis] Pontificate.”

The big choice

Archbishop Viganò now faces a crossroads that other bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities may also see ahead: “There comes a moment in our life when, through the disposition of Providence, we are faced with a decisive choice for the future of the Church and for our eternal salvation. I speak of the choice between understanding the error into which practically all of us have fallen, almost always without evil intentions, and wanting to continue to look the other way or justify ourselves.”

Viganò has made his choice: “Just as I honestly and serenely obeyed questionable orders sixty years ago, believing that they represented the loving voice of the Church, so today with equal serenity and honesty I recognize that I have been deceived.

Being coherent today by persevering in error would represent a wretched choice and would make me an accomplice in this fraud.”

As other Church authorities ponder their own crossroads, let our Lord’s words from today’s Sunday Mass reading from the Gospel of Saint Matthew (10:37-40) admonish them to stay faithful to him and the faith he established:

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.’”

Amen.