Blockbuster New Viganò Letter to Pope

Rod Dreher posted the letter in its entirety over at The American Conservative. You can read Viganò’s first letter here. In it Dreher stated that:

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who served at the papal nuncio (that is, Vatican ambassador) to the United States from 2011-2016, has dropped an atomic bomb on Francis’s papacy, charging that “corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy.”

Now Dreher has received a second letter from the Archbishop. He begins his piece by telling us that Carlo Maria Viganò has a new statement that was released to him through an Italian journalist. He then posted the “blockbuster” letter:

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.    View article →

Research:

Roman Catholicism