Viganò Justly Excommunicated, but There Is More To Do

On Thursday, while Americans were celebrating our proud heritage of liberty and courage, the Vatican was concluding an ecclesial trial. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to the United States, was accused of the delict of schism, tried, and found guilty.

According to a press release from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), the Vatican’s official doctrine office, Viganò has been automatically (latae sententiae) excommunicated. “His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known,” the press release announced. (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: Archbishop Viganò and the Schismatic’s Pride)

This decision is certainly a blow and perhaps even a surprise to many Catholics, especially those who call themselves traditionalists, but is nonetheless just. As the DDF noted, Viganò has spurned and rejected the rightful authority of both the Supreme Pontiff — Pope Francis, in this case — and the Second Vatican Council.

While the archbishop may have been inspired by good intentions — his love of the grand traditions of the Catholic Church and hatred of heresy are palpable — these good intentions, unbridled from rightful authority, resulted in his prideful, obstinate rejection of the very organs of the Body he claimed to be defending.

Pope Francis may be a poor Pope, his leadership of the Church over the past decade has been a catastrophe, but he is still the Pope. For a Catholic to reject the Pope’s authority is to reject the very words of Christ Himself: “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:18-19). This is a grave offense, against both the Church and against Christ Himself.

Furthermore, Viganò and others of the same stripe defend tirelessly the ecumenical (meaning “world-wide,” not “inter-denominational”) councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Trent — even the provincial councils of Baltimore. On what grounds, then, is the weight and authority of the Second Vatican Council rejected? What right does a lay YouTuber, a popular priest, or even an archbishop have to reject the official, world-wide magisterium of the Church, without rejecting the Church entire?

Others Have Done Worse Than Viganò

Thus, the penalty incurred by Viganò is a just one. But it does not seem to be an act of justice. In his voluminous Summa Theologica, Doctor of the Church Thomas Aquinas explained that heresy is a graver sin than schism. The schismatic, Aquinas noted, adheres to the same faith and worship as other Catholics, but “refuse[s] to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.” The heretic, however, doubles the offense of the schismatic by not only rejecting the authority of the Church but its very Faith. “Now heresy results from something being added to schism, for it adds corrupt doctrine…. Therefore schism is a less grievous sin than unbelief,” Aquinas wrote.

While Viganò is justly prosecuted and penalized for his crimes against the unity of the Church, heretics abound in the upper ecclesiastical echelons and go about their damnable business with seeming impunity. Germany’s bishops have repeatedly clashed with the Vatican, arguing that the Pope and indeed the whole Church is wrong to condemn homosexual acts and bar women from becoming priests. While Pope Francis has personally issued several strongly-worded letters urging the Germans to give up their sexual schemes, not one has been excommunicated and no direct warning of schism has been issued from Rome.

Even Pope Francis’s own aides and appointees flirt with (and arguably even indulge in) outright heresy. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, whom Pope Francis appointed to lead the DDF and elevated to the College of Cardinals, ghostwrote the current Pontiff’s most controversial works, including Amoris Laetitia, which was perceived upon its publication as endorsing sexual immorality — namely, homosexual relationships and divorce and remarriage. Four cardinals — Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller, Joachim Meisner, and former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura Raymond Burke — wrote a letter asking the Pope to clarify ambiguities in Amoris Laetitia, warning that Catholics may be misled into believing these sins to no longer be sinful. That letter was delivered in 2016: two of the cardinals are now dead and Pope Francis has still offered no answer regarding the letter, nor has Fernández.

Before taking office in the DDF, Fernández also teased the notion of reversing the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. Although Dignitas Infinita, issued by his office, clearly rejected that idea, the controversial Fiducia Supplicans was widely seen as an official approval for priests to bless same-sex unions. Other friends of Pope Francis, such as the rabidly pro-LGBT Jesuit James Martin, took advantage of ambiguities in Fiducia Supplicans to bless same-sex relationships. Martin, notably, was handpicked by Francis to serve in the Vatican’s communications office and to participate in the final stages of the global Synod on Synodality.

One of the leaders of Pope Francis’s pet synodal project, Luxembourg’s Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, has actually suggested that the Church’s moral teachings on homosexuality were the erroneous result of a misunderstanding of what homosexuality is. “When the Church doctrine was being created, the concept of homosexuality did not even exist. Homosexuality is a new word; even in St. Paul’s time, people had no idea that there could be men and women attracted to the same sex,” the cardinal claimed. He argued that homosexual acts were condemned by the Church early on due to their association with pagan cults, further asking, “But how can you condemn people who can only love members of the same sex?” (READ MORE: The Apostasy of the Jesuits)

This is a mere sampling. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican and the College of Cardinals have been packed with homosexuality apologists, advocates of priestesses, climate change hysterics, and all manner of those who openly question or subtly reject crucial, perennial theological and moral teachings of the Catholic Church. None of these men have been condemned or censured for their dissent against the Catholic Faith.

Viganò came to prominence in the public square in 2018, when he revealed that he had repeatedly warned Pope Francis and the Vatican over the past five years about the homosexual predation of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. For decades, McCarrick groomed, molested, and raped boys and young men, from ten-year-olds at the local parish to men in their early twenties studying at seminary. McCarrick was quickly laicized in an extrajudicial process, but has not been excommunicated. He is still, even after the gross extent of his brutal and horrific sex crimes have been revealed, allowed to call himself a Catholic.

The trial of Viganò was just, as was its inevitable outcome. But the management of the Vatican and, indeed, of the whole Catholic Church under the reign of Pope Francis has been unjust. Heretics are allowed to sow doubt and dissent, to poison the hearts and minds of otherwise faithful Catholics, to flirt with abolishing the moral order decreed by Almighty God, with little to no consequence. It is indicative of the state of the present pontificate when a just act, such as the excommunication of Viganò, must be explained as justice, simply because injustice proliferates in every other quarter.

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