De Mattei: An Exceptional Document - Monsignor Vigano’s Interview to The Washington Post

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

June 12, 2019

"The bottom line is this: Pope Francis is deliberately concealing the McCarrick evidence."

The extensive interview that Archbishop Maria Viganò gave to Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli in the Washington Post of June 10^th is of exceptional importance for several reasons.

The first and most important reason is that this interview indicates the utter failure of the Vatican’s  strategy of ‘silence’, faced with the detailed accusations of the former Nuncio to the United States. Those in charge of the Vatican media were convinced that Monsignor Viganò’s revelations would have been confined to a ‘niche audience’, ready to be forgotten after some moments of emotional excitement. This did not happen..

The Washington Post is one of the most widely read newspapers in the planet, with millions of readers and the Archbishop’s interview was, for almost three days, the second most popular article  on its site. Monsignor Viganò’s voice has had an impact world-wide, shattering the wall of silence and imposing evidence that cannot be ignored or minimized.

The second reason, connected to the first, is that with his interview, The Washington Post recognizes Monsignor Viganò as a historical witness, whose credibility cannot be placed in doubt by anyone.  The Archbishop does not enter into the theological problems arising from documents like Amoris Laetitia, but limits himself to addressing the facts that he knows: the existence of a “corrupt mafia” which “has taken control of many institutions of the Church, from the top down, and is exploiting the Church and the faithful for its own immoral purposes”. This mafia “is bound together not by shared sexual intimacy but by a shared interest in protecting and advancing one another professionally and in sabotaging every effort to reform the sexual corruption”.                                                                    

Regarding the clumsy efforts of the Vatican media to discredit him, by accusing him of having  ambitions of power: “In any case, my motivation is not the point, and questions about it are a distraction. The truly important question is whether my testimony is true. I stand by it, and I urge investigations so that the facts may appear. Unfortunately, those who impugn my motives have been unwilling to conduct open and thorough investigations”.

The Viganò crisis: 'The conservatives are winning'

Cross posted from lmschairman.org

This must count as one of the most absurd comments on the clerical abuse crisis centred, for now, in the United States. The attempt to carry on as if nothing at all was happening, always the first recourse of the bureaucrat to a crisis, has at this moment not only failed, even according to a supporter, but become utterly ludicrous. Of course people are more interested in Archbishop Viganò's statement than in the latest missive from the Bishops' Conference about the dignity of work. Are we supposed to think that this interest is misplaced?

By that time 'team Francis' had already moved on to a kind of damage-limitation which, instead of trying to distract attention from Archbishop Viganò, focused it on what they hoped would prove to be his weaknesses. This, too, has proved a failure, however. Few people had heard of Viganò before his statement, and no-one has anything invested in his personal reputation or political associations. They just want to know if what he says is true.

Global scandal: Francis exposed as a liar by own advisers on abuse victim

From the Associated Press, in what is turning out to be the greatest scandal of a sorry Pontificate:

AP exclusive: despite denial, Pope got abuse victim’s letter

By NICOLE WINFIELD and EVA VERGARA

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis received a victim’s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope’s recent insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover-up, the letter’s author and members of Francis’ own sex- abuse commission have told The Associated Press.

The fact that Francis received the eight-page letter, obtained by the AP, challenges his insistence that he has “zero tolerance” for sex abuse and cover-ups. It also calls into question his stated empathy with abuse survivors, compounding the most serious crisis of his five-year papacy.

Help traditional Catholics fight sex trafficking

Sex trafficking is a horrific reality for all of us -- regardless of your country of origin. Please read the following report and pray on it. Go to the bottom of the post to see how you can help:

A New Zeal for Souls

“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me” (Mark 9: 37).

In our day, a well-formed Catholic can see the attack on the family from rampant lust: The objectification of women, artificial contraception, abortion, pornography, and prostitution. The gift of procreation -- the greatest gift to our nature -- suffers under this vice.  It has broken lives through the centuries and today lust is even more free to break souls.  The counter attack is to build up the family, live the virtues of modesty and chastity, and work for a virtuous culture.