It was Summer 2018.
First, there was the public revelation in June of Theodore McCarrick, disgraced former primate of Washington, D.C., who spent a lifetime exploiting his office to carry out his sick predilections of male seminarians and minors, even someone he baptized — his first baptism, as it turned out.
Then came the devastating Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing the demonic deeds of 300 priests in the state’s six dioceses across 70 years, a nauseating flashback to the dominoes of 2002 beginning in Boston uncovering what was hitherto covered up.
Finally, the rule of three: Archbishop Viganò’s “testimony” from August 25, an 11-page letter in which the former papal nuncio to the United States leveled major accusations against senior level clergy, such as former Bishop of Pittsburgh and then-current cardinal archbishop of Washington, D.C., Donald Wuerl, claiming knowledge not only of McCarrick’s past behavior but that McCarrick had sanctions imposed on him sometime in the 2000s by then-Pope Benedict XVI. These sanctions included forbidding McCarrick to travel and publicly say Mass.
However, Viganò’s most damning denunciation was directed at Pope Francis himself, whom Viganò claimed lifted the sanctions set by Benedict and put the octogenarian McCarrick to work on Vatican diplomatic missions, including to China. Viganò went as far as calling on Francis to resign.
This bombshell was dropped at the same time Pope Francis was concluding his trip to Ireland, where the 9th World Meeting of Families gathering was in its final day. And as is the custom, Pope Francis spoke with journalists on the papal plane as he returned from Ireland to Rome. On August 26, CBS News journalist Anna Matranga asked Pope Francis the veracity of Viganò’s claims. “I read it and sincerely I must tell you, and all those who are interested: read it yourselves carefully and make your own judgment. I will not say a single word on this,” he replied.
By refusing to comment, Francis sidestepped an invariable quagmire. In the immediate aftermath, Archbishop Viganò went into hiding in northern Italy, allegedly fearing for his life, occasionally submitting further testimonies as follow ups, refusing to back down from his claims. One published reply to Viganò came from the prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who associated Viganò’s claims against Pope Francis as “blasphemous.” On the other hand, then-bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph E. Strickland, called the allegations “credible.”
And since Francis took no personal stance on the letter, a faction rose up to join Viganò in calling on the pontiff to resign. Such a comment — “I will not say a single word about this” — generated two camps of analysis in general: those who appallingly saw the Viganò Testimony as an intended coup against the Francis pontificate; and those who supported Viganò as “whistleblower” and desired to see the pope fall. Much speculation ensued over whether Francis was taking the higher road by not responding, or whether his decision to be silent vindicated Viganò’s claims.
In the following days, Pope Francis did occasionally reference his stance of silence, however obliquely: “With people who lack good will, with people who only look for scandal, who solely seek division, who are just after destruction, even in families: silence and prayers,” he advised on September 3. Elsewhere, he stated, “May the Lord give us the grace to discern when we should speak and when we should stay silent. […] Thus, we will be closer imitators of Jesus.” On September 18, he spoke the following in his morning homily:
“In these times, it seems like the ‘Great Accuser’ has been unchained and is attacking bishops. True, we are all sinners, we bishops. He tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible in order to scandalize the people. The ‘Great Accuser’, as he himself says to God in the first chapter of the Book of Job, ‘roams the earth looking for someone to accuse’. A bishop’s strength against the ‘Great Accuser’ is prayer, that of Jesus and his own, and the humility of being chosen and remaining close to the people of God, without seeking an aristocratic life that removes this unction. Let us pray, today, for our bishops: for me, for those who are here, and for all the bishops throughout the world.”
Meanwhile, Viganò remained hidden, purportedly somewhere in Tuscany, leaving battle lines still drawn. That fall saw the synod on the youth, in which, of all people, film director Martin Scorsese appeared and asked, “How can we elderly people strengthen and guide the young in what they have to go through yet in life? How, Holy Father, can the faith of a young woman or man survive in this maelstrom?”
The youth synod generated great attention in the Catholic press, pushing the “Viganò Testimony” off the front page. It had to have been a disappointment for Vigano, given how coordinated his timing was releasing his testimony when he did. In fact, in September he called it “the most painful and serious decision that I have ever made in my life.”
The messages that dripped out from Viganò in the ensuing years increasingly took on apocalyptic and political tones, so much so one wondered if Viganò was being recruited from the QAnon conspiracy machine. Indeed, Viganò’s presence was felt at the Let the Church ROAR!/Stop the Steal rally held in Washington on December 12, 2020 when he submitted the following prayer:
O Almighty God, who many times hast manifested the power of Thy right hand at the side of Christian armies, place Thyself at the head of this army of Thy children. Let the prayer we address to Thee through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Patroness of the Americas, rise up to Thee, so that we may attain the freedom and peace that Thou hast promised us.
And just as in the time of Joshua, raise up holy heroes and courageous witnesses of the Faith, so also today hear the prayer we raise to Thee, and break down the walls of the City of darkness, granting victory to those who serve under Thy holy banner. Amen.
GOD BLESS OUR PRESIDENT
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ONE NATION UNDER GOD
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
The event was investigated by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Back in 2016, I cited Viganò in my first book, Father Benedict: The Spiritual and Intellectual Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, in a brief overview of the final chaotic months of Benedict’s papacy, marked by the Vatileaks scandal, wherein the pontiff’s trusted butler, Paolo Gabriele, stole and copied documents from Benedict XVI’s desk. I wrote:
“At the center of the documents was Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, appointed by Benedict XVI to ‘enact a series of reforms within the Vatican.’ The Washington Post reported, ‘In one missive, Viganò wrote to [then-Vatican Secretary of State] Cardinal Bertone accusing him of getting in the way of the pope’s reform mission.”
That is itself quite a loaded accusation against Bertone; Viganò was no stranger to inciting controversy. When he emerged with his letter on August 25, 2018, Viganò was clearly striving for maximum impact — or maximum damage — banking that his “testimony” would have press all over it and also be in a position to question the pope about it directly.
Except after months, if not years of planning, Viganò’s “time bomb” ultimately failed to have the effect Viganò had planned.
Now in light of his canonical trial as a possible schismatic, what are we to make of that summer 2018 “time bomb”?
A month after the August 25 “testimony,” I wrote to Pope Benedict’s biographer Peter Seewald, asking if he might be able to interview the pope emeritus to clarify the Viganò situation. Seewald replied, saying that Archbishop Gänswein publicly stated that Benedict would not comment on the events. Seewald did offer some advice to take to heart: “Yes, our church is a church of sinners, but it will survive this crisis, too.”
But perhaps we might be able to look back to a year earlier to speculate what Benedict’s response might have been, when a message by Benedict was read at the funeral of his close colleague, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, in July 2017:
“[Meisner] learned to let go and to live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even if the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing.”
Benedict added later in the short letter, “The Lord wins in the end.”