Italian journalist: “How Archbishop Viganò gave me his memo. Here’s why I decided to publish it.”

UPDATE 28 August:

Italian Vaticanist Marco Tosatti was also involved.  See this AP story in English: HERE

It concludes:

Tosatti said Vigano didn’t tell him where he was going after the article came out, knowing that the world’s media would be clamoring to speak with him.

As Tosatti accompanied Vigano to his door, he bent down to kiss Vigano’s ring — a sign of respect for Catholic bishops.

“He tried to say ‘No.’ I told him ’It’s not for you, it’s for the role that you (play) that I do it,” Tosatti said. “He didn’t say anything. He went away, but he was crying.”


Originally Published on: Aug 27, 2018

The blog of long-time Italian Vaticanista Aldo Maria Valli has his personal account of how Archbishop Viganò gave him his Testimony, which is rocking the Church from the depths to on high.  The highest.

This is my translation.  I used “Dragon” to transcribe it so I could work faster.  There might be a goof here and there.  Saying “Viganò” produced variations of “Vegan know”, for example.  I’ll leave the format pretty much as it is on the writer’s blog.  And if tenses aren’t always consistent… well… whatever.  Sometimes he lacks “” in his own text.  Deal with it.  The meaning is clear.  I’m a little loose with Italian “monsignore” and English “Archbishop”.


Così monsignor Viganò mi ha dato il suo memoriale. Ed ecco perché ho deciso di pubblicarlo
How Archbishop Viganò gave me his memo. And here’s why I decided to publish it.

“”Dottore”(in Italian, a not rare title), I need to see you”.
The tone of voice was calm, but I could hear a note of apprehension. On the phone was Msgr. Carl Maria Viganò the former Nuncio in the United States.
I didn’t hide my surprise, we had seen each other. Sometimes, on the occasion of public conferences, but I can say that we knew each other.
He explained that he is an avid reader, that he appreciates my courage and my clarity, sometimes joined with irony. I thanked him and I asked: why do you want to get together?
The response was that I can’t say it on the phone.
Okay, so let’s get together, but where?
I naïvely suggest my office then as a little bar that’s nearby, which is my second office.
“No, no, for heaven sake. As far away from the Vatican as possible, far from prying eyes”.
I am not by nature a conspiracy guy, but I can see that the Archbishop was seriously worried.
“So at my house? For supper? But my wife then some of my daughters will be there.”
“At your house is just fine”.
“Should I come to get you?”
“No no I will come with my car.”
And that’s how it happened.
When the Archbishop came, on a warm evening of early summer, I saw an older man than how I remembered him. He smiled, but right away you knew that something was oppressing him. He had a weight on his heart.
After introducing my wife and daughters, and after he blessed the table, to break the tension a little we joked about our common Lombard roots (he Varese, we from Rho). The Archbishop had arrived at the appointed hour, on the minute: in Rome that happens pretty rarely.
Then Viganò got down to business. He was worried for the Church, feared that at its summit there are people who are not working to bring the Gospel of Jesus to men and women of our time, but to bring confusion and to give in to the logic of the world. Then he began to recount his long experience in the Secretariat of State, as head of the Governorate of Vatican City and as Nuncio in Nigeria and in the United States. He gave a lot of names and cited many circumstances. For my wife and for my daughters it wasn’t easy to follow him. Even I, having been a Vaticanista for more than 20 years, sometimes struggled to get my bearings. But we did not interrupt him because we understood that he needed to talk. The impression was that he was a man alone, and sad for what he had seen around him, but not embittered. In his speech there was never a bad word about the many other people he mentioned. The facts were eloquent. Sometimes he smiled and looked at me, as if to say: “What do we have to do? Is there a way out of this?”
He said that he called me because, even not knowing me personally, he respected me especially for the courage and the freedom that I show. He added that my blog is read and appreciated also in the “sacri palazzi” (Vatican offices), even if not everyone can say it openly.  [Tell me about it!]
I asked him something about his experience at the Governorate and he told about how he managed to save the Vatican a great deal of money, by making them follow the rules and by putting the accounts in order.
I commented: “So, Monsignore, after that clean up you certainly won’t have made friends!” He smiled again and said: “Don’t I know it! But if I would not have done it. I could not have respected myself.”
He is a man of a profound sense of duty. At least that’s what it seems. In just a few minutes we were on the same frequency.
My wife, a catechist at the parish, and my daughters were literally speechless in the face of certain stories. I always say, joking but not really, that good Catholics shouldn’t know how things work in the upper hierarchy, and this evening confirmed that. Nevertheless, I am not sorry to have invited the Archbishop to my home. I believe that the sorrowful testimony of this man, of this old servant of the Church, is telling us something important. Something which, even in its pain and its discomfort, can help our life of faith.
The Archbishop said: “I’m 77 years old, and I’m at the end of my life. The judgment of men doesn’t interest me. The only judgment that counts is that of our good God. He will ask me what I did for the Church of Christ and I want to be able to tell him that I defended her and served her to the last.”
That’s how the evening went. We had the strong sense that His Excellency hadn’t even noticed what he had on his plate. Between one bite and another he didn’t stop talking.
When I walked him to his car. I asked myself: So, in conclusion, why did he want to see me? Out of respect, and from a lack of confidence, I didn’t ask him that question, but, before taking his leave, he said to me: “Thank you, we will meet again. Don’t call me. I’ll get in touch with you.” And he got into his car.
I am a journalist and therefore in these cases my first impulse is to sit down at the computer and write everything that he told me, but I held back. The Archbishop did not forbid me to write. Indeed, he didn’t say anything to me about that. But it was beyond doubt that he had revealed certain things to me. I now understand that the meeting was a kind of test. The Archbishop wanted to see if he could trust me.
A little more than a month went by and he called me again. The request was the same as the last time, “can we get together?”
“Of course we can. Shall we meet at my house again? I ask this because there will be yet another daughter, the oldest, and there will be per two children, our grandchildren.”
“No problem”, Viganò said. “The important thing is that we too have a secure place where we can speak.”
And so His Excellency, the former Nuncio of the United States, returned to visit us. And this time he seemed a little less tense. You could see that being with this big and a little chaotic family was a pleasure. At a certain point his mobile phone rang. It was a video call from the United States. It was his nephew: “Oh, sorry, uncle, I don’t want to disturb!” Viganò smiled, amused, and showed with his phone the whole gang at the table, including the grandchildren. “What great company!”, His nephew said. And then, turning to me: “take advantage of the situation to tell him of my great esteem.” The tension relaxed. Our grandchild of three years swarmed on the monsignor and called him Carlo Maria. Viganò was amused and it seemed for a few minutes to have forgotten his crosses. But again, after the blessing of the table, the Archbishop was a river in full flood. So many stories, so many situations, so many names. But this time he focused more on his years in America. He mentioned the case of McCarrick, the ex-Cardinal known to be guilty of very grave abuses, and he gave us to understand that everyone knew, in the United States and in the Vatican, for a long time, for years. And they covered it up even so.
I asked: Everyone? Really everyone?
With a nod of his head. The Archbishop responded yes: everyone, really.
I wanted to ask other things, but it wasn’t easy to inject myself into the uninterrupted flood of dates, stories, meetings, names. The core of it was that even Pope Francis, according to Viganò, knew. Even so, he let McCarrick go about undisturbed, making a joke out of the bans that had been imposed by Benedict XVI. Francis new already by March 2013, when Viganò himself responded to a question from the Pope during a face-to-face meeting, he said that there was a thick dossier on McCarrick in the Vatican and there was nothing else to do but read it.
In respect to our previous meeting there was the news of the results emerging from the investigation by the grand jury in Pennsylvania, and Viganò confirmed that the general line was correct. Sexual abuses constituted a phenomenon more extensive than one could imagine, and it was not correct to speak of pedophilia, because in the vast majority of cases they were dealing with homosexual clerics who were on the hunt for adolescent males. More accurate, the Archbishop said, is to speak if anything of ephebophilia. But the point was that the network of complicity, omertà, cover-up, and reciprocal favors extended beyond all imagination, and reached the very heights, both in America and in Rome.
We were again thunderstruck. Because of my work. I had guessed some of it, but for kind of Catholics we are, born and raised in the bosom of Mother Church, it was truly difficult to swallow this bitter pill.
My question therefore was the most naïve possible: Why?
And the response the Archbishop gave froze my blood, “Because those fissures Paul VI talked about, through which the smoke of Satan would enter into the house of God, have become an abyss. The devil is at work on a huge scale. And not to admit it, or to turn your face in another direction, would be our greatest sin.
I realized in that face-to-face moment, which the Archbishop so valued, really wasn’t private at all. He had spoken in front of everyone. I asked him if he wanted for us to go into another room, without my wife, daughters and grandchildren, but he said no, this is fine. We knew that it was okay. For us it was a little like listening to a grandfather who told stories about faraway lands, and we wanted so much that, at a certain point, he would say that it was only fiction. It was our Church. It was our supreme pastors. The real question remained: why did the Archbishop tell us all of this? What did he want from me? This time I asked him and he responded that he had written a memo containing all of these issues he had spoken about. Included were the meeting of 23 June 2013 with the Pope, when he, Viganò, told Francis about the dossier on McCarrick.
And so?
“And so,” he said, “if you will allow me I will let you have my memo, which demonstrates that the Pope new and did nothing. And then you, after weighing it, can decide to publish it or not on your blog, which is very much followed. I want this to be known. I don’t do this lightheartedly, but I think that it is the only path remaining to attempt the reversal, an authentic conversion”
“I understand. Are you giving it only to me?”
“No. I will give it to another Italian blogger, and an Englishman, and an American and a Canadian. Translations will be made into English and Spanish.”
Even at this point, the Archbishop did not ask me to keep this secret. I understood that he trusted me. And so we agreed that, at his request, we should meet again and he would give me the memo.
After a few days he called me and we made an appointment. I cannot say where we met, because I gave my word.
The Archbishop came in sunglasses and a baseball cap. He asked that my first reading of the document take place in his presence, so, he said, “if there is something that doesn’t convince you, we can talk about it right away.”
I read everything. There were 11 pages. He was amazed at my speed and looked at me: “and so?”
I said: “It’s powerful. Backed up. Well written. A dramatic summary.”
He asked: “Will you publish it?”
“Monsignore, you realize that this is a bomb? What should we do?”
“I entrusted to you. Think about it.”
“Monsignore, you know what they’re going to say? That you want to get even. That you are consumed with rancor for having been sacked from the Governorate and other positions. That you are the snitch (corvo) who leaked the Vatileaks documents. They will say that you are unstable, in addition to being a conservative of the worst kind.”
“I know, I know. But that makes no difference to me. The only thing that makes a difference is to bring the truth to the surface, so that a purification can begin. At the point where we are now, there is no other way.”
I was worried. Within myself, at heart, I had decided to publish it, because I knew that this man trusted me. But I asked: “What effect will this have on simple souls? On good Catholics? Don’t we risk to do more harm than good?”
He noticed that I asked the question in a strong voice and the archbishop responded: “Think about it. Weigh it, with calm.” We shook hands. He took off his sunglasses and looked me directly in the eyes. The fact that he didn’t pressure me, that he didn’t seem anxious to see me publish it all, made me trust him even more. Was it a maneuver? Was he manipulating me?
At home I spoke with Serena and with my daughters. Their advice has always been important for me. What to do? These were days of questions. I reread the memo. It was backed up with evidence, but obviously we were dealing with Viganò’s version. I think that the readers will understand this. I will offer the Archbishop’s version, after which, if someone has arguments in an opposite sense, he can propose other versions.
My wife reminded me: “But if you publish this they will think that, by the very fact of publishing it, you are on his side. Are you okay with that?”
Yes, I’m okay with that. Will the judge be to be biased? Pazienza! After all, I am biased. When I act as a news man I act as a news man and nothing else, seeking to be as impersonal as possible, but on my blog I am thoroughly aligned and readers know very well how I think about a certain tendency that the Church has taken in the last few years. So if someone wants to show me documents that prove that Viganò lied, or that his version of the facts is incomplete or incorrect, I will be delighted to publish them too.
I spoke with the Archbishop on the phone. I told him my decision. We agreed about the day and the hour of the publication. He said that they would publish the others also on the same day and at the same hour. He decided on Sunday, 26, August because the Pope, during his return from Dublin, would have the chance to respond to questions from journalists on the airplane. He told me that among those who would publish it were added the daily “La Verità”. He told me that he had already bought an airline ticket. He was going abroad. He could not tell me where. I won’t look for him. His old mobile phone number doesn’t work anymore. We said goodbye for the last time. That’s how it went. It’s not that my doubts are ended. Did I do the right thing? Did I do something wrong? I continue to ask myself that. But I am at peace. And I reread the words that Archbishop Viganò wrote at the end of his memo: “Let us all pray for the Church and for the Pope, let us remember how many times he has asked us to pray for him! Let us renew our faith in Holy Mother Church: I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church! Christ will never abandon His Church! It was born from His blood and it is reanimated continuously with His Spirit! Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us! Mary, Virgin Queen, Mother of the King of Glory, pray for us!”

Aldo Maria Valli

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Clerical Sexual Abuse, The Drill and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

35 Comments

  1. JamesA says:

    Wow. Thanks for translating for us, Father. We needed to read that.
    My head is whirling. I’m a political junkie and can make pretty good political predictions based on my analysis of situations, but this has me flummoxed. I know this isn’t the Church’s worst hour, but it’s the worst in quite a few centuries, at least.
    Christie eleison.

  2. Ioannes Andreades says:

    God help us.

  3. JonathanTX says:

    I, for one, am energized; I feel as though finally something will be done and the “smoke of Satan” will finally be exorcized from the Vatican. Perhaps I am being naive, but that’s how I feel.

  4. Geoffrey says:

    Unbelievable.

    I have a feeling that this is the beginning of the end of this pontificate.

  5. jgrigorian says:

    Very powerful.

  6. Elizabeth D says:

    Worst hour? If it is so bad, why do I feel so relieved? I believe it was much worse the hour before Archbishop Vigano decided, prayerfully, to do the little that he could do while he still had life and breath left to do it.

  7. Spinmamma says:

    And so we learn that God has prepared a witness to support Archbishop Vigano’s credibility and motives. Perhaps the others he contacted about his information and memo will also step forward. This account gives the lie to some of the accusations against his Excellency by the Modernists. God moves in mysterious ways.

  8. JabbaPapa says:

    Compare this clarity and reason to, for example, the open lobbying by the (owned historically by some liberal catholics) Le Monde against the Pope for being anti-gay and anti-LGBT, instead of honestly reporting the far deeper scandals of moral corruption that have come to light.

  9. fmsb78 says:

    I was wondering… Let’s say Pope Francis resign so who this far-left college of cardinals would elevate? Blase Cardinal Cupich? Looks like the St Galeen folks must go too or we’re just going to get more of the same.

  10. r7blue1pink says:

    What a breath of fresh air… Truly… THIS is a PROPERLY FORMED CONSCIENCE! God Bless the Archbishop! God SAVE our Beloved CHURCH! May Our Lady CRUSH the serpents head!

  11. Rob83 says:

    Godspeed Archbishop, may the angels protect you on your way. This has the feel of a man writing his last testament.

  12. Gabriel Syme says:

    This is a good read which paints Archbishop Vigano in a very good light and shows his deep love for the Church.

    The statement about how the fissures referenced by Paul VI have “become an abyss” is devastating. And we can all see it to be true, from the state of the contemporary Church.

  13. Traductora says:

    Very impressive, both Viganò and Aldo Maria Valli. These are truly courageous men, doing their duty as followers of the Lord and lovers of the Church, and risking all. There needs to be a new category of sainthood, “martyrdom by media,” because their lives and reputations will be destroyed by the press for having broken the compact and told the truth. But the truth will triumph.

    Like some of the other commentators, I actually feel happy and relieved. It’s going to be hard, probably the entire Church will be ripped apart, but it must be done and now it has started.

    And I was happy to see that Viganò called the true cause of the whole thing: Satan. Sexual perversion is just the symptom or rather an expression of Satanic possession, and Satan cannot be expelled from the Church by yet another meaningless “policy on homosexual persons,” whatever those are. The problem goes a lot deeper than that.

    All of the people involved in these things need to face destitution from office, excommunication and civil punishment for their crimes. This must be ruthless. And ultimately, the heresy and falsification of the Faith that have taken root in the highest places must be rooted out, and the genuine Faith (and its life-giving practices) restored. The destruction of the Faith is the source of the problem and what has given Satan the ability to install the goat-like figure on the Throne of Peter and sow evil everywhere.

  14. Gab says:

    I know there’s been a lot said about homosexual pederasts being one of the main issues with the Church today. However, I have distilled this down even further. And it’s just my theory, however I believe, from all the signs, that the true cause (apart from the gates of hell being unleashed) is Leftism. Think about it. Leftism invades all institutions – schools, universities and so on; and it really has invaded our Church. All liberals ever want to do is to tear down the orthodox teaching of the Church and the Leftist media will always give them a hand. And Pope Francis is a socialist first and foremost. Allowing Leftism to invade the Church was the beginning of the current state the Church is in today.

  15. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Let justice be done, though the sky falls.

    Seriously, the Monsignor has done the Church a great favor. Jesus is our Lord and King, and He is Truth and Justice. True loyalty to the Church and the Pope means saying the unpalatable thing, if it is true, and doing the hard thing that needs to be done. Let us do likewise.

    And you notice that one can do all this without leaving the Church of setting up an alternate structure. He just told the truth and shamed the devil.

  16. The Egyptian says:

    God Bless the Bishop and Valli, says much that the Bishop has disappeared, I would be in fear of my life if I were him. May his Guardian Angel protect him, he has much to fear. Time for Micheal the Archangel to do his job, cleanse the temple. I am afraid I have no faith in the Pope or much of the Church Hierarchy right now, Good Bishops it is time to take up your cross and bear the load it is going to be messy and loud.
    Waiting for Dan Brown to get his hands on this, gay albino monks anyone?

  17. LarryW2LJ says:

    The Archbishop said: “I’m 77 years old, and I’m at the end of my life. The judgment of men doesn’t interest me. The only judgment that counts is that of our good God. He will ask me what I did for the Church of Christ and I want to be able to tell him that I defended her and served her to the last.”

    This in itself is a breath of fresh air. Did my heart good to know that there are still good men out there. Monsignore, I pray that someday you will hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

  18. Unwilling says:

    Could it be that Francis is operating “with a gun to his head”? That this expose by Vigano is a desperate attempt (by Vigano, perhaps with Francis’ coaching) to rescue the Pope from a homosexual Babylonian Captivity? I find it startling to read near the end of Valli’s Record words about “trust” and pleading for the “thoughtful consideration” of Vigano’s Testament. When the Pope says the Testament “speaks for itself”, perhaps he means to say “It is true. Rescue me!”

  19. Bellarmino Vianney says:

    Interestingly, the Great Archbishop seems to hint that there is (or may be) a violent coalition behind the scenes that is helping the Lavender Mafia.

    This commentator and likely many others have mentioned the possibility of pro-liberal, pro-“LGBT” or “LGBT”-sympathizing laity aiding the clergy and prelates in the destruction of the Church.

    Did anyone else see that Cardinal McCarrick was sent to Iran and China (!) by the Obama Administration? It seems to me that we are seeing a uniting of evil-doers based on their common hatred for the Authentic Jesus Christ. “Within” the Church at the present time, there are those who despise the Authentic Jesus Christ, and they are uniting with those outside the Church who hate Him as well.

    This is why this commentator continues to alert good priests and bishops to be on the lookout for traps from plain-clothed “secret police” surveillers at Mass, Adoration Chapels, diocesan offices, lectors, cantors, etc. They may appear to be your friends, but they can quickly turn against you, and they are likely experts in entrapment.

  20. RichR says:

    Is it me, or is this one of those moments in history where we will look back and tell our grandchildren that we were there? So tragic. I feel like there are many souls who will fall away, but in the end there will be a better Church for it.

  21. Am I the only one wondering why a number of people haven’t spoken up? There are individuals who were named in Vigano’s “testimony,” who, if the claims made were false, you would think would be quick to say so. How long does it take to say, “no, that didn’t happen”?

  22. Il Ratzingeriano says:

    The decisive factor is what the US Conference of Bishops will do. Will it have the backbone to demand a full and honest accounting of the claims in the Vigano’ testimony and declare Pope Francis to be a corrupt Pope if that accounting is not permitted? It is a tall order. If however this is not done I can only conclude that the human institutional Church is shot through with corruption that cannot be eradicated so long as Pope Francis is the pope.

    Right now only the US Bishops can call Pope Francis to account concerning the Vigano’ testimony. The press is obviously far too corrupt to do it. The call by Pope Francis for the press to settle this points to his own corruption. If the Vigano’ testimony is true insofar as it implicates Pope Francis in the McCarrick scandal (and by all indications it is) the only honest thing for Pope Francis to do would be to say that he is implicated in the problem and for that reason is abdicating. If the Bishop of Rome is permitted to promote a known sexual predator without consequence, why should any other bishop suffer any consequence for doing so?

  23. teomatteo says:

    “My wife reminded me: “But if you publish this they will think that, by the very fact of publishing it, you are on his side….”
    This saddened me very much. I know, I know it is obvious but, We have taken to sides, one versus the other. I thought we were on the same side against the evil one. Us divided is not good. I need to go to daily mass.

  24. Pingback: Viganò Watch: Tuesday Second Edition – Big Pulpit

  25. MaureenTheTemp says:

    It isn’t much, but I am fasting from sweets and offering it up for the consolation of the Sacred Heart and the purging of homosexuality from the Church – I’m guessing lots of other Catholics are praying and sacrificing as well. I’m going to try and make Holy Hour in reparation as much as I can. If I see anything else I can do, I will. Just wish it could be more, like others I think this is a turning point.

  26. Malta says:

    The Lavender Mafia is particularly out of control here in Santa Fe. The FSSPX is the only safe refuge for me.

  27. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    I will continue to fast, pray, and abstain in my own ways and add my little sufferings to those brave priests of God who are still to come forward and help shake out all the rot.

    I will continue to read the Liber Gomorrhianus for perspective. The Church has survived this corruption before. The Gates of Hell shall no prevail.

    Romans 1:
    24 Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves.
    25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
    26 For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature.
    27 And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
    28 And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not suitable;
    29 Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers,
    30 Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
    31 Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.
    32 Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.

  28. Dismas says:

    I have no reason to believe that Pope Francis will step down, at least until he is satisfied that his successor is assuredly cut from the same cloth.

    That said, God may have other plans. Perhaps a major Vatican Bank scandal around October?

  29. Marion Ancilla Mariae II says:

    This is all so horrific and so sad. Cardinal Vigano’s actions remind me of those of a great war hero. The world is sometimes not kind to such men. The world will not be kind to those of us who remain faithful to Christ, either. The world, I suspect, is on the side of the homosexuals and the liberals within the clergy and the hierarchy.

    Even though the secular media is acting “shocked . . . shocked!*” that there is hebephilia (attraction to pubescent youth) and ephebophilia (attraction to post-pubescent youth) within the Church, I believe these perversions to be not at all uncommonly practiced among the secular elites. I’m now having something of an “ah-hah!” moment, and coming to believe that the obsession among our secular elites for sowing “welcoming” attitudes toward active homosexuals and transexuals throughout the culture, has been intended by these elites to open the way to greater freedom for the hebephiles and ephebophiles among them, and thus greater foreseeable access to vulnerable youth. And even those among the elites who don’t participate in deviant practices, some may be compromised in other ways, or may have come so unmoored morally that they simply go along with the current, lest their elite peers look down on them and ostracize them for having “backward” attitudes. Connections are everything among the elite, including jobs – future and current jobs.

    This is Stage Four Cancer. Don’t think for one moment that the source of this cancer is to be found primarily within the Church. I doubt that it is. I believe this cancer has been spreading and metastasizing – mostly hidden and unseen – for decades throughout the culture and the Church, and now all of the West is utterly riddled with it. And if people would like to know what the corresponding carcinogens have been, that allowed this cancer to become so aggressive and so extensive, I believe it has been the infidelity of ordinary Christians in the pews. Especially Catholic infidelity – all the way from neglect of prayer, to lack of attendance at Sunday Mass, to making blasphemous Communions, to materialism and desire for success to the point of idolatry; prideful dissent from magisterial Church teaching, particularly as shown by other sinful practices which have become distressingly common among Catholics: adult children dishonoring their mother or their father by abandoning their frail and aged parents in nursing homes,** (often while yet enjoying their inheritance from said parents); couples living together; couples contracepting and cheating on each other; young people binge drinking, using drugs to deaden their consciences, and experimenting sexually; divorce and remarriage outside the Church; and all the other sins widely practiced among “respectable” or “semi-respectable” Catholics.

    This kind will only come out by prayer and fasting. If it’s not too late already.

    ————————————————–
    * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM_A4Skusro

    ** Nursing home and assisted living care for elderly parents unable to care for themselves, may become absolutely necessary when there is no one at home for most of the day to look after them; however, these seniors must not be left abandoned in these institutions, nor left without the comforts of home because their families don’t wish to visit them or at least check in on them frequently.

  30. VAcatholicdude says:

    Rod Dreher has posted over at The American Conservative that Archbishop Vigano has responded to the allegation that he helped cover up the Archbishop Nienstedt affair. And there is a copy of a document to back up his version:
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/vigano-i-did-not-quash-the-nienstedt-investigation/

  31. Charivari Rob says:

    The Associated Press has succeeded in muddying the waters a teeny bit further in this saga by referring to this Tosatti as a journalist. It implies he was acting as a journalist – necessitating some degree of objectivity.

    I assume he ordinarily is (or was) a journalist. In this matter, however, he is simply a collaborator with +Vigano. It might turn out that they are both entirely honest, sincere, well-intentioned, and completely correct – I’ve certainly been reading enough people today who are confident that they are. The fact remains, however, that he acted as a collaborator, not a journalist.

    A journalist might publish +Vigano’s statement unfiltered & complete (or at least excerpted, with a link to the complete text).

    A journalist might conduct an actual interview with +Vigano – Q&A on the record about the allegations, strong points, weak points – and publish in that format.

    A journalist might investigate (I hope) & corroborate – though I admit there’s probably a gaping chasm (or maybe a barbed-wire fence) between what he already knows on general background (it being his “beat”) and being able to constructively question principal figures (especially with what the time frame appears to have been).

    A journalist would not help the source “write, rewrite, and edit” his allegations.
    A journalist would not filter out the source’s claims that “could not be substantiated or documented” because it “had to be absolutely waterproof”.
    A journalist would not act as agent, creating & packaging the story for other news outlets.

  32. Marion Ancilla Mariae II says:

    “A journalist would not help the source ‘write, rewrite, and edit’ his allegations.
    A journalist would not filter out the source’s claims that “could not be substantiated or documented” because it ‘had to be absolutely waterproof.’
    A journalist would not act as agent, creating & packaging the story for other news outlets.”

    Oh, I don’t know. I suspect there might have been some journalistic polishing of “Deep Throat’s” revelations by Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate revelations. Just a tad.

    And these two men continue their careers as authors and speakers, and lecturers at colleges and universities.

  33. JabbaPapa says:

    See this — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDkEPM-sZYg — from about 25:00 for a very clear-minded Layman’s perspective on this scandal, and the underlying corruptions of the homoheresy, including into the mainstream media.

  34. JabbaPapa says:

    And see this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD8XJoQURU8

    Cardinal Burke and Archbishop Viganò and Monsignor Melina on Amoris Laetitia etc. in May this year.

  35. Semper Gumby says:

    Thank you for this translation Fr. Z. God bless Abp. Vigano.

    There is a bit of resemblance here to Michael O’Brien’s “Father Elijah.” Many good quotes in that novel, such as:

    “The pain in itself is not joy. It is simply pain. But the meaning of the pain, that is joy.”

    The Egyptian: In a sense, Dan Brown had put his mitts on this in his latest novel “Origin.” If I recall, on the first page of this twisted novel a traditional or conservative bishop is introduced, he’s a Bad Guy (there is a twist later though- the bishop is a “celibate homosexual” in a platonic relationship with the traditional king of Spain, the bishop commits suicide when the king dies).

    Anyway, near the end of the book there is a Liberal and Tolerant priest Freed from Dogma and Enlightened by Our Hero Robert Langdon and Science- he’s a Good Guy. Dan Brown’s science angle here is the promotion of Evolution. The Big Plot Device in Brown’s novel is a project to merge humans and technology to create Heaven on Earth.

    Some people never learn. We already have a prolepsis of Heaven, in the Extraordinary Form.

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