Fr. Z's Blog

Huge.

Archbp. Carlo Maria Viganò has issued a third Testimony.  It is a neutron bomb.

First, at CNA we read that the present “Sostituo”, the 2nd in command in the Secretariat of State for matter within the Church, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra “might have been dismissed from a seminary where he studied because he was thought by seminary administrators to have a homosexual orientation.”  Parra was mentioned in Archbp. Carlo Maria Viganò’s 25 August “Testimony”.  With that in mind, read on!

Remember that Archbp. Viganò released his Testimony on 25 August, read in my PODCAzT HERE.   Many prelates found his accusations credible.

He issued another piece, stronger in September  HERE  In that second piece Viganò called out Card. Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

Ouellet responded in a bitterly sharp letter on 7 October.  HERE  While harshly criticizing Viganò, Ouellet confirmed many of the things Viganò had claimed.

Now – on the Feast of the North American Martyrs – Archbp. Viganò has issued a THIRD Testimony.  It comprehensive.  Marco Tosatti has it, in Italian, HERE.  The indomitable Ed Pentin posted it in English – bless him- at the National Catholic Register.  Bless him, in particular, because I found it just before launching into my own translation.  Thanks.

After an introduction, Archbp. Viganò lists in bullet points the key events.

Here is the first part of Testimony 3.0.  It starts right in after stating the feast day, without being addressed to any one person or persons.  Hence, it is addressed to everyone, including, dear reader, you.  YOU are part of this narrative, too.  My emphases:

To bear witness to corruption in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was a painful decision for me, and remains so. But I am an old man, one who knows he must soon give an accounting to the Judge for his actions and omissions, one who fears Him who can cast body and soul into hell. A Judge who, even in his infinite mercy, will render to every person salvation or damnation according to what he has deserved. Anticipating the dreadful question from that Judge — “How could you, who had knowledge of the truth, keep silent in the midst of falsehood and depravity?” — what answer could I give?

I testified fully aware that my testimony would bring alarm and dismay to many eminent persons: churchmen, fellow bishops, colleagues with whom I had worked and prayed. I knew many would feel wounded and betrayed. I expected that some would in their turn assail me and my motives. Most painful of all, I knew that many of the innocent faithful would be confused and disconcerted by the spectacle of a bishop’s charging colleagues and superiors with malfeasance, sexual sin, and grave neglect of duty. Yet I believe that my continued silence would put many souls at risk, and would certainly damn my own. Having reported multiple times to my superiors, and even to the pope, the aberrant behavior of Theodore McCarrick, I could have publicly denounced the truths of which I was aware earlier. If I have some responsibility in this delay, I repent for that. This delay was due to the gravity of the decision I was going to take, and to the long travail of my conscience.

I have been accused of creating confusion and division in the Church through my testimony. To those who believe such confusion and division were negligible prior to August 2018, perhaps such a claim is plausible. Most impartial observers, however, will have been aware of a longstanding excess of both, as is inevitable when the successor of Peter is negligent in exercising his principal mission, which is to confirm the brothers in the faith and in sound moral doctrine. When he then exacerbates the crisis by contradictory or perplexing statements about these doctrines, the confusion is worsened.

Therefore I spoke. For it is the conspiracy of silence that has wrought and continues to wreak great harm in the Church — harm to so many innocent souls, to young priestly vocations, to the faithful at large. With regard to my decision, which I have taken in conscience before God, I willingly accept every fraternal correction, advice, recommendation, and invitation to progress in my life of faith and love for Christ, the Church and the pope.

Let me restate the key points of my testimony.

Then for a couple of pages he goes chronologically through everything he has done, with whom he spoke, corresponded, etc.   After that he takes up something that Card. Ouellet wrote and finishes with a peroration.

[…]

In brief, Cardinal Ouellet concedes the important claims that I did and do make, and disputes claims I don’t make and never made.

There is one point on which I must absolutely refute what Cardinal Ouellet wrote. The Cardinal states that the Holy See was only aware of “rumors,” which were not enough to justify disciplinary measures against McCarrick. I affirm to the contrary that the Holy See was aware of a variety of concrete facts, and is in possession of documentary proof, and that the responsible persons nevertheless chose not to intervene or were prevented from doing so. Compensation by the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Metuchen to the victims of McCarrick’s sexual abuse, the letters of Fr. Ramsey, of the nuncios Montalvo in 2000 and Sambi in 2006, of Dr. Sipe in 2008, my two notes to the superiors of the Secretariat of State who described in detail the concrete allegations against McCarrick; are all these just rumors? They are official correspondence, not gossip from the sacristy. The crimes reported were very serious, including those of attempting to give sacramental absolution to accomplices in perverse acts, with subsequent sacrilegious celebration of Mass. These documents specify the identity of the perpetrators and their protectors, and the chronological sequence of the facts. They are kept in the appropriate archives; no extraordinary investigation is needed to recover them.

In the public remonstrances directed at me I have noted two omissions, two dramatic silences. The first silence regards the plight of the victims. The second regards the underlying reason why there are so many victims, namely, the corrupting influence of homosexuality in the priesthood and in the hierarchy. As to the first, it is dismaying that, amid all the scandals and indignation, so little thought should be given to those damaged by the sexual predations of those commissioned as ministers of the gospel. This is not a matter of settling scores or sulking over the vicissitudes of ecclesiastical careers. It is not a matter of politics. It is not a matter of how church historians may evaluate this or that papacy. This is about souls. Many souls have been and are even now imperiled of their eternal salvation.

As to the second silence, this very grave crisis cannot be properly addressed and resolved unless and until we call things by their true names. This is a crisis due to the scourge of homosexuality, in its agents, in its motives, in its resistance to reform. It is no exaggeration to say that homosexuality has become a plague in the clergy, and it can only be eradicated with spiritual weapons. It is an enormous hypocrisy to condemn the abuse, claim to weep for the victims, and yet refuse to denounce the root cause of so much sexual abuse: homosexuality. It is hypocrisy to refuse to acknowledge that this scourge is due to a serious crisis in the spiritual life of the clergy and to fail to take the steps necessary to remedy it.

Unquestionably there exist philandering clergy, and unquestionably they too damage their own souls, the souls of those whom they corrupt, and the Church at large. But these violations of priestly celibacy are usually confined to the individuals immediately involved. Philandering clergy usually do not recruit other philanderers, nor work to promote them, nor cover-up their misdeeds — whereas the evidence for homosexual collusion, with its deep roots that are so difficult to eradicate, is overwhelming.

It is well established that homosexual predators exploit clerical privilege to their advantage. But to claim the crisis itself to be clericalism is pure sophistry. It is to pretend that a means, an instrument, is in fact the main motive.

Denouncing homosexual corruption and the moral cowardice that allows it to flourish does not meet with congratulation in our times, not even in the highest spheres of the Church. I am not surprised that in calling attention to these plagues I am charged with disloyalty to the Holy Father and with fomenting an open and scandalous rebellion.
Yet rebellion would entail urging others to topple the papacy. I am urging no such thing. I pray every day for Pope Francis — more than I have ever done for the other popes. I am asking, indeed earnestly begging, the Holy Father to face up to the commitments he himself made in assuming his office as successor of Peter. He took upon himself the mission of confirming his brothers and guiding all souls in following Christ, in the spiritual combat, along the way of the cross. Let him admit his errors, repent, show his willingness to follow the mandate given to Peter and, once converted let him confirm his brothers (Lk 22:32).

In closing, I wish to repeat my appeal to my brother bishops and priests who know that my statements are true and who can so testify, or who have access to documents that can put the matter beyond doubt. You too are faced with a choice. You can choose to withdraw from the battle, to prop up the conspiracy of silence and avert your eyes from the spreading of corruption. You can make excuses, compromises and justification that put off the day of reckoning. You can console yourselves with the falsehood and the delusion that it will be easier to tell the truth tomorrow, and then the following day, and so on.

On the other hand, you can choose to speak. You can trust Him who told us, “the truth will set you free.” I do not say it will be easy to decide between silence and speaking. I urge you to consider which choice– on your deathbed, and then before the just Judge — you will not regret having made.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò

etc.

Archbp. Viganò, offered a credible testimony before.  He has, once again offered a credible testimony.   A credible testimony calls for a credible response, a serious response that corresponds to the weight of the matter.  In this case, the matter is as grave as anything we have heard about in the Church.  The Present Crisis is not just a blip.

Again, Viganò has uncovered the root of The Present Crisis: homosexuals and homosexual predation – with the sodoclericalism that results.

I think we have to make a distinction between clericalism and sodoclericalism.

Do make regular prayer for Archbp. Viganò part of your daily routine.  When he issued his first piece, he went into hiding.  Some might think that that is a little melodramatic.  However, I know for a fact that homosexuals and mafiosi and all manner of dangerous actors run together, for their interests overlap.  In Vatican circles, people can turn up dead.  HERE  It also happens far out of Vatican circles but within the Church when it comes to unmasking the powerful and their homosexual depredations.  HERE  When it came to McCarrick, one person was afraid of winding up at the bottom of the Potomac. HERE  Archbp. Viganò has good reason to be afraid.  Homosexual crime is among the most brutal that law enforcement and medical responders see.