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Archbishop Viganò's blog
Do you think the version of the Third Secret of Fatima published by the Vatican in 2000 is the real one?
The text of the third part of the Secret of Fatima was delivered by Sister Lucia to the Bishop of Leiria in 1944: it refers to the vision that the three shepherd children had in 1917 and which the Virgin Mary expressly stated was to be revealed in 1960. It was delivered to the Holy Office in 1957, during the reign of Pius XII. John XXIII read it in 1959 and decided not to make it public. Paul VI did the same in 1967. John Paul II read it in 1978 or perhaps in 1981. In 2000, on the occasion of the Jubilee, he ordered its publication, leaving people to believe that it was the complete text, saying that the vision of the stricken Pope referred to him, and more precisely to the attack he suffered in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981. The suspicion that the text of the Secret has been manipulated is more than well-founded. Beyond the anomalies and technical inconsistencies – such as the format of the paper support used by Sister Lucia – it seems clear to me that the “revealed” content was censored, so as not to confirm what is there for all to see: the demolition of the Catholic Church from within and the apostasy of the faith through a “bad Council” and a “bad Mass”. The decision not to jeopardize the revolutionary outcome of Vatican II led Roncalli to decide not to reveal the Third Secret. Montini acted in the same way; also because the revolution of the Council had in the meantime extended to liturgical reform. On the other hand, it is not surprising that a Hierarchy that adulterates the Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium can also go so far as to censor the words of the Most Holy Virgin in the context of apparitions recognized by the Church.
Should the Vatican Bank be abolished?
The Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) is a bank, and it is normal that an institution such as the Catholic Church and the Vatican City State are equipped with one. Its management is entrusted to two lay people: a President and a General Director; while a Commission of Cardinals is responsible for supervising its activities. Since it is not administered by the Governorate of Vatican City, in my functions as General Secretary I never had any institutional role in the operation of the bank.
It is up to those who administer the IOR – i.e., the Commission of Cardinals and ultimately the Secretariat of State, on behalf of the Holy Father – to dictate the rules that guarantee its correct management and the transparency of its operations, and also to prevent speculation and illicit activities.
In my book Infiltration I document your investigative work as Secretary General of the Governorate of Vatican City State from July 2009 to September 2011 under Pope Benedict XVI. What else did you find? For the sake of history, can you tell us exactly what happened?
Before being appointed to the Governorate, I had been appointed by John Paul II as the Delegate for the Pontifical Representations, in the First Section of the Secretariat of State. My immediate superiors were the Substitute and the Secretary of State, who were the only ones with direct access to the Holy Father. My task was to prepare all the dossiers relating to the hiring and promotions of the staff of the Roman Curia and the Apostolic Nunciatures, and also to manage highly confidential dossiers concerning the members of the Roman Dicasteries and the College of Cardinals.
My investigative activity, preparing the dossiers and formulating an assessment on the persons and the suggestion of the decisions to be taken, ended with the delivery of the dossiers to the Substitute. It was then up to the Substitute and the Secretary of State – first Sodano and then Bertone – to present my dossiers to the Pope or not, deciding based on their own total discretion whether to advance someone or shelve them. For example – in addition to the well-known case of McCarrick – what did my Superiors do when I gathered very serious information about Maradiaga? Why was he elevated to the rank of Cardinal, instead of being punished in accordance with the crimes he committed?
Cardinal Bertone, who kept Pope Benedict under control, obtained his permission to remove me from my position because, as I said in my June 2024 statement
J’accuse, I was obstructing his action and his appointments. He had me sent to the Governorate as General Secretary, but since it was a
diminutio, that is, a demotion compared to the previous role, Bertone promised me that at the end of Lajolo’s term, who was now close to retirement, I would be appointed President of the Governorate, a cardinal’s position.
On the very first day of beginning my role at the Governorate, 16 July 2009, I realized the state of total irregularity and corruption of the administration. I immediately discovered the existence of a
Finance & Management Commission – an illegal entity that was not foreseen by the statutes of the Governorate – composed of a group of eminent Italian bankers who were in charge of the financial management of the Vatican City State. This commission, presented as a merely consultative body, in reality had decision-making functions and speculated for their own profit on Vatican investments placed in investment funds – including BlackRock – with which they had signed management contracts whose costs were higher than the interest paid to the Governorate.
I therefore immediately set to work, and within a few months the deficit of over 10 million dollars that existed in the 2009 fiscal year changed to a surplus of 44 million dollars, putting an end to the illicit affairs of both prelates and lay people. This recovery operation should obviously have entailed the removal of the protagonists of such malfeasance, starting with Cardinal President Lajolo and the Administrative Director of the Vatican Museums, Monsignor Paolo Nicolini.
Lajolo, who reeks of freemasonry, is roped together with Cardinal Silvestrini, who is in turn a creature of Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli, the man of Ostpolitik, a key figure in the pontificate of John Paul II. Silvestrini, head of the Second Section for Relations with States, was a prominent member of the St. Gallen Mafia and head of the Villa Nazareth University College, a sort of ecclesiastical version of the
Young Global Leaders for Tomorrow program of Davos. Former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, a dark figure who condemned Italians to house arrest during the pandemic farce, emerged from this breeding ground at the crossroads between deep church and deep state.
Monsignor Paolo Nicolini belongs to the so-called
Lavender mafia, the Vatican homosexual lobby. As Administrative Director of the Vatican Museums and Cultural Heritage of the Governorate he found himself managing the main source of revenue for the Vatican City State. Among Nicolini’s main misdeeds that I immediately had to deal with, there was the contract he prepared, with the approval of Cardinal Lajolo and my predecessor Msgr. Renato Boccardo, for the restoration of Bernini’s Colonnade and the two Fountains of St. Peter’s Square for a value of 15 million euros.
The Governorate was not actually included among the parties to the said contract, which had instead been stipulated, in a Swiss bank, between the company responsible for raising funds to finance the works (through an advertising display on the Colonnade of St. Peter’s Square) and the company in charge of the restoration work (chosen by Nicolini without any tender). Msgr. Nicolini was owed a significant monthly fee paid to him directly by the firm that raised the funds through advertising. This firm retained for itself some millions of euros already collected, which should have been paid to the company that was carrying out the restorations, according to the progress of the work, to the point of causing its interruption. I was therefore forced to intervene to have the contract dissolved and demand that the sums collected be immediately paid to the Governorate and thus provide for the remuneration of the work carried out. It was then that I was kicked out of the Governorate, and Cardinal Lajolo once again found himself in a position to act undisturbed.
Another case of mismanagement was the assignment of the contract for setting up sales points at the Vatican Museums to the
Opera Laboratori Fiorentini, which represented a turnover of millions of euros and which allowed Nicolini to gain an enormous personal economic advantage under the table.
My removal from the Governorate occurred after a defamatory press campaign organized by Msgr. Nicolini and the young powerful Marco Simeon, a well-known homosexual freemason, former secretary of the Minister for Urban Cultural Heritage and secretary of the President of Mediobanca, an intimate friend of Secretary of State Bertone and his protégé, to whom he later owed his promotion to the Italian state television station (RAI) where he was in charge of the relations with the Vatican.
My work was nullified and dissolved the team of collaborators I had set up, and confirming in their places all the corruption protagonists I had reported. Nicolini was promoted to Head of the Pontifical Villas in Castel Gandolfo, where he could manage an enormous property much larger than the Vatican City State. He obtained from Bergoglio the immediate expulsion, with brutal and vindictive methods, of Eugenio Hasler, a man of integrity and my close collaborator, son of the Major of the Swiss Guard, who saw his reputation, his professional career, his good name, and indeed his very existence destroyed. Recently Msgr. Nicolini was appointed by Bergoglio as Director of the
Laudato Si’ Higher Education Center (
here), which deals with “green projects” in accordance with the
diktats of the
World Economic Forum of Davos. The latest of them, advertised a few weeks ago, consists of an agrivoltaic plant in the extra-territorial Vatican property of Santa Maria di Galeria. This project had already been proposed by Cardinal Lajolo under Benedict XVI, and I was the one who prevented its realization.
Following these media attacks, Benedict XVI set up a Commission of inquiry made up of three cardinals: Herranz, Burke, and Lajolo, despite the latter being directly implicated. Bertone managed to persuade Herranz to dissolve the Commission, which he replaced with a Disciplinary Commission of the Governorate, which, despite being under the control of Bertone himself, decided to dismiss Nicolini and adopted sanctioning measures against the Management of the Pontifical Villas. The measures adopted by this disciplinary Commission were, however, nullified by Bertone and Lajolo.
While Pope Benedict had twice expressed to me his desire to appoint me as President of the Prefecture of Economic Affairs of the Holy See in place of Cardinal Velasio de Paolis – a position, he told me, “in which I could best serve the Holy See” – Bertone obtained my being sent to Washington, away from the Roman Curia and those I had “disturbed” in my fight against corruption.
The butler Paolo Gabriele – an honest and naive but well-intentioned man – on his own initiative handed over to the press my letters addressed to Pope Benedict and Bertone in which I denounced the vast corruption in the Governorate. With this gesture, Gabriele hoped to be able to help Benedict by bringing to light the network of complicity in the Vatican, the role of excessive power of Bertone and Lajolo and the machinations against the Pope. The role of Msgr. Gänswein was also decisive. He competed with Bertone for control over Benedict in the government of the Church. In 2012, after the leak of these documents (Vatileaks 1), the Pope established a new Commission of Cardinals composed of Herranz, Tomko, and De Giorgi. Despite the fact that I was at the center of those events, this new body tried to ignore me for at least two months, and it was only following my explicit telephone request to Cardinal Herranz, while I was in Washington, that I was listened to so that I could give my testimony. “Your Eminence, don’t you think I also have something to say in this matter?” The Cardinal’s upset response was: “If you really want to…”
My written memorandum, in addition to the report of the interrogation, was inserted in the famous white box that the Emeritus delivered to Bergoglio in April 2013 when he went to visit him in Castel Gandolfo (see photo), instructing his Successor to intervene to remedy the rampant corruption in the Vatican.
On 23 June 2013 when I met Bergoglio, after he asked me about McCarrick and the Jesuits in the USA in order to feel out my position, he asked me to give him the dossier that I had given to the three Cardinals appointed by Benedict to investigate. I did so immediately, and he told me, “I have a small safe in my bedroom. Now I’ll take it over there (which he did) and read it this evening.”
It is obvious that Bergoglio was only interested in knowing who the corrupt people were in order to be able to use, control, and blackmail them. Nicolini was among his protégés – a man who, as we have seen, he not only kept in his place but promoted to higher positions, eliminating anyone who opposed him, starting with Eugenio Hasler.
I have often wondered what happened to that white box and why the two Cardinals still alive – Herranz and De Giorgi – continue to remain silent in the face of the cover-up of what emerged from their investigation.
Cardinal Fernandez has declared that you received a latæ sententiæ excommunication for the crime of schism. Does this canonical penalty apply to you? Why or why not?
On June 11, 2024, I was informed by a simple email (without ever receiving any official notification) of a canonical trial against me, and was told that if I wished to oppose the accusations made against me, I needed to appear in Rome just nine days later, on June 20, or else to submit my written defense by June 28, the Vigil of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. I do not believe such a short time to prepare one’s defense it is given even if you just get a parking ticket.
The charges brought against me are completely inconsistent: I am accused of schism for having questioned the legitimacy of Bergoglio and for having rejected Vatican II. But the law recognizes the non-applicability of the will or intention to commit schism in the case in which the accused person is persuaded that the one who sits on the Throne of Peter is not the Pope and, where the groundlessness of his suspicions is demonstrated, is willing to submit to his authority. I consider Jorge Mario Bergoglio an anti-pope – or better said, a counter-pope, a usurper, an emissary of the anti-Catholic lobby that has infiltrated the Church for decades. The evidence that he is completely alien to the papacy, his multiple heresies, and the coherence of his subversive acts of government and “magisterium” are very serious elements that cannot be hastily dismissed.
Regardless of the method and merit of the extra-judicial canonical case, the vacancy of the Apostolic See and the usurpation of the Throne of Peter by a false pope render all the acts of the Roman Dicasteries completely void of validity and efficacy, so even the excommunication against me is null.
We are faced with a canonical short circuit: the one who holds the supreme earthly authority in the Church, at the moment in which he is denounced for heresy, responds by accusing of schism the one who denounces him, and excommunicates him. This instrumental use of justice – typical of dictatorships – contradicts the mens of the Legislator and rightly falls under what is foreseen by the Bull of Paul IV: it is the very adhesion to heresy that expels the heretic from the Church and renders his authority illegitimate, invalid, and null.
Who are the most dangerous men in the Vatican right now?
After Bergoglio, the most dangerous are Fernàndez, Hollerich, Roche, Peña Parra… These men, together with the Secretary of State Parolin, are all accomplices in the disastrous management of the Vatican and the entire Church. I recall in passing that Parolin was a member of the network of the Second Section of the Secretariat of State, at that time headed by the Freemason Silvestrini, a leading member of the St. Gallen Mafia, to whom he owes his rise.
What should lay Catholics do if the Traditional Latin Mass is banned by the Vatican?
The Tridentine Mass is a priceless treasure for the Holy Church. It has been “canonized” by its centuries-old use in which we see the voice of Sacred Tradition expressed. If the Hierarchy, abusing its power against the purpose that the Lord has given it, prevents the celebration of the ancient Mass, it commits an abuse, and this prohibition is null.
Priests and bishops should show more courage, continuing to celebrate the ancient rite and refusing to celebrate the Novus Ordo. They would probably face sanctions from the Vatican, but they ought to ask themselves what sanctions will await them when they have to answer before the Lord’s tribunal for not having fulfilled their duty, preferring servile obedience to the powerful rather than obedience to God.
The laity should organize themselves into small communities by purchasing the churches that are now up for sale or by setting up home chapels, and by seeking out priests willing to celebrate the Mass and Sacraments for them according to the Apostolic rite and by helping them materially to carry out their ministry.
What are your thoughts on the Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP), and the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX)? Do you encourage people to attend their Masses?
The former
Ecclesia Dei institutes were born from the Vatican’s intention to weaken the Society of Saint Pius X after the Episcopal Consecrations of 1988, which, having given itself an apostolic succession, was able continue its apostolate even after the death of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The “authorization” to celebrate the Tridentine Liturgy – which until then had been completely excluded – had and still has as its condition the acceptance of the “post-conciliar magisterium” and the licitness of the
Novus Ordo. This premise is completely unacceptable, because it reduces the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass to a ceremonial question, while instead it is evident that the Tridentine rite summarizes in itself all the doctrine and spirituality of the Catholic Faith, in antithesis to the Protestantized rite of Paul VI that ecumenically silences that Faith. Whoever celebrates the Mass of Saint Pius V cannot accept Vatican II. In fact, from the beginning, many priests who had left the Society of Archbishop Lefebvre and had joined the
Ecclesia Dei institutes continued to have strong reservations and, so to speak, played on the equivocation of a tacit acceptance that the Vatican itself did not ask to be made explicit.
In 2007, Benedict XVI recognized the legitimacy of the traditional Liturgy, declaring that the Traditional Latin Mass was the “extraordinary form” of the Roman Rite, alongside the “ordinary form” of the
Novus Ordo. The Motu Proprio
Summorum Pontificum reveals Ratzinger’s Hegelian approach, which in the coexistence of two forms of the same rite sought to compose the synthesis between the thesis of the traditional Mass and the antithesis of the Montinian rite. But even in that case, the ideological basis of the Motu Proprio was in fact moderated by practice, and so the end result of
Summorum Pontificum was relatively positive, at least in the spread of the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass that today’s younger generations had never experienced. Young priests and many of the faithful have embraced the Apostolic Rite, discovering its beauty and intrinsic coherence with the Catholic Faith.
In the face of the success of the Mass of all time, the Motu Proprio
Traditionis Custodes drastically limited the liberalization of
Summorum Pontificum, declaring that the right of every priest to celebrate the traditional Mass had been abolished and reserving it only to the former
Ecclesia Dei institutes. Thus an “Indian reservation” of more or less conservative clerics who depend on Bergoglio has been created, who are required to profess the conciliar faith through the concelebration of the new rite at least once a year: something that practically all the priests of these institutes are forced to do, willingly or not. On the other hand, it does not seem to me that the bishops and cardinals who support them have expressed any reservations about the Council or about the doctrinal, moral, and liturgical deviations of the post-conciliar period and of Bergoglio himself. It is difficult to expect from subordinates a combativeness that eminent Prelates have never demonstrated.
These institutes are therefore under blackmail. If with
Summorum Pontificum it was plausible to think of an attempt at liturgical peace that would leave conservatives free to choose the rite they prefer (in a vision that was, so to speak, liberal), with
Traditionis Custodes the clergy who celebrate and the faithful who attend the Traditional Latin Mass are burdened by the ecclesial stigma of backwardness, of the rejection of Vatican II, of pre-conciliar rigidity. In this case, synodality and
parrhesia yield to the authoritarianism of Bergoglio, who, however, does speak an uncomfortable truth: the Ancient Rite calls into question the ecclesiology and theology of Vatican II and as such does not represent the conciliar church. The illusion of liturgical peace has therefore been shattered miserably in the face of the evidence of the irreconcilability of two rites that “excommunicate” each other, just like the two churches – the Catholic Church and the synodal church – of which they are a cultic expression.
In the case of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the ritual and ceremonial question seems to prevail over the doctrinal one, and it is no coincidence that amidst the general dissolution that exists, the Canons of Gricigliano seem to be exempt from opposition and ostracism: they do not represent a problem, because they do not question the new course in the slightest and indeed have extensive citations of conciliar documents in their Constitutions. The other institutes are also surviving, but it remains to be seen how they intend to respond to the coming future restrictions.
The Society of Saint Pius X, after fifty years of activity, is showing signs of tiredness, and sometimes it seems that its silence about the horrors of Santa Marta is motivated by a tacit agreement of non-belligerence, perhaps in the hope of being able to become the collector of conservatism and of part of Catholic traditionalism, once Bergoglio has eliminated “the competition” of the former
Ecclesia Dei institutes. My fear is that this hope will in the end lead to ratifying the
de facto schism that is already present in the Church, forcing Catholics to leave the official church, as if they, and not the Roman Hierarchy, were in a state of schism. Once the critical voices are eliminated, Bergoglio would find himself with “his own” heretical church, from which the priests and faithful who do not accept the permanent revolution have been banished.
As for the faithful, I believe it is necessary to understand the situation of great disorientation and anarchy that is present in the Church. Many Catholics who have discovered the Traditional Latin Mass are no longer able to attend the Montinian rite, and it is understandable that they are “content” – so to speak – with the Tridentine Masses celebrated by the former
Ecclesia Dei institutes, without however accepting the compromises that are required of their priests. But it is a situation that sooner or later will have to be clarified, especially if the acceptance of conciliar and synodal errors becomes the
conditio sine qua non of the enjoyment of the Traditional Latin Mass. In that case the faithful must act coherently and seek out priests who are not compromised with the synodal church. The horrors of this “pontificate” are in any case eroding the consensus of the Clergy with regard to Bergoglio: a traditional faction could decide not to follow him on the failed path he has undertaken.
What would you say to lay people who have no access to the Traditional Latin Mass?
I understand the torment that many feel at not being able to attend the Tridentine Mass. It is like being deprived of the very Presence of the Lord and of the Graces that the Holy Sacrifice spreads on souls and on the Church. But we must remember that throughout history, many Catholics, both in distant lands not yet reached by missionaries and also in times of persecution, have found themselves unable to attend Mass except on rare occasions. A Catholic can survive without the Mass, but not without the Faith. If Faith is therefore indispensable for salvation, it is important that every Catholic nourish his or her religious education by taking up the Tridentine Catechism again and nourishing the intellect and the heart in such a way as to resist the contagion of the
Novus Ordo and its degenerations. We must pray that the Lord sends workers for His harvest, and we must support the few priests who are still faithful.
What was McCarrick’s role in the China-Vatican deal?
Despite the fact that accusations against McCarrick’s scandalous conduct were already well known and that disciplinary measures had been taken against him by Pope Benedict, Bergoglio instructed the then-Cardinal to maintain contact with the Beijing government, also because of his connections to the White House and with the Democrat establishment that had – and still has – relations with the Chinese dictatorship.
McCarrick’s ability to “monetize” the Church’s collaboration with certain members of the Chinese government led to the signing of a secret agreement, which according to some rumors – which I am unable to verify – brings millions into the Vatican every year, in exchange for its silence about the persecution of Catholics who are faithful to the Apostolic See and about human rights violations.
As former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, what is your assessment of the status and health of the United States episcopate?
The American Episcopate is the fruit of decades of bad management by the Vatican: corruption and the presence of a very powerful homosexual lobby – formed largely by McCarrick’s protégés – is totally favorable to the new Bergoglian agenda, in a scandalous submission before the woke positions of the radical Left that is destroying the United States. Among these corrupt men can be counted Cardinals Spellman, Bernardin, Dearden, McCarrick, and their progeny, as well as of course the Society of Jesus, which played a decisive role in the dissolution of Catholicism.
The “healthy” part of Bishops – which as Nuncio I tried in every way to promote and defend – is a minority, conservative but conciliar-minded.
What do you think of the munus vs. ministerium argument that Benedict XVI did not truly resign?
The Resignation of Benedict XVI, due to the procedural defects and the canonical
monstrum that it produced [of two apparent “popes”], is certainly invalid, as Professor Enrico Maria Radaelli has excellently explained. The invention of the “papacy Emeritus” further undermined the Petrine Primacy and opened the way to that “shared papacy” – in a surreal division of
munus and
ministerium without any theological or canonical basis – which is today evolving into a reinterpretation of the role of the Pontiff in an ecumenical key, as we see in the Study Document “
The Bishop of Rome” that was recently published by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. A unity that is already a mark of the one true Church of Christ, which is the Catholic Church, and which Vatican II significantly presents as an objective to be achieved by interpreting dogma in a way that does not cause conflicts with the errors of the non-Catholic sects.
The fact that Ratzinger may have subjectively believed that he abdicated from the Papacy does not affect the nullity of the Renunciation. Despite the aura of orthodoxy that surrounds the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, especially within moderate conservative circles, his redefinition of the Petrine institution and his creation of the “papacy emeritus” constitute the maximum expression of the heretical instances present in Ratzingerian theology, and as such must be the object of a very precise condemnation, together with the other heresies (well highlighted by the studies of the eminent Professor Radaelli) that the German theologian never disavowed.
What should the next pope do? Should he declare Bergoglio an antipope? Invalidate Vatican II?
When Our Lord became incarnate 2024 years ago, there was neither a king nor a priesthood in Israel. If we are in fact approaching the end times, then I believe that the vacancy of the Apostolic See is destined to last. When He returns to earth, Our Lord will again take up the temporal scepter and the spiritual crown, re-assuming in His own Person the royal and priestly power that today are illegitimate.
But if Providence were to deign to grant the Church a true Pope, he could be recognized by the condemnation and declaration of nullity of the Council, and the disasters it produced. A holy Pope would abolish the
Novus Ordo and restore the traditional Liturgy, because he would have at heart first of all the glory of God, the honor of the Church, and the salvation of souls.
Pope Leo II declared his predecessor, Pope Honorius, anathema. Will this happen again?
That would be the least that should happen. The condemnation of error is necessary in order to restore the violated order, which is founded in God, that is, on the supreme Truth. Honorius was excommunicated by Pope Leo II not because he was a heretic, but because
profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est – with worldly deception he tried to subvert the purity of the Faith – because he had not clearly condemned the Monothelite heresy, according to which in Christ there were not two wills – one divine and one human according to his two natures – but only one. Bergogli’’s subversive action is much more serious, just as the heresies that Vatican II not only did not fight, but rather became a pastoral vehicle for, in a colossal deception of the ecclesial body, are much more serious.
If Bergoglio were an antipope, wouldn’t his cardinals be anti-cardinals and invalid? How could a conclave occur? In order to solve this problem, have you read Guérard des Lauriers’ “Cassiciacum Thesis”. Do you agree with his “material papacy” argument?
The College of Cardinals is composed for the most part of widely compromised and corrupt figures. Moreover, the illegitimacy of Bergoglio (also for violations of what is prescribed in the Apostolic Constitution
Universi Dominici Gregis which render the election invalid) nullifies all his acts of government, therefore also all of his appointments to the Sacred College are null. If the Cardinals appointed by his Predecessor were to recognize that Bergoglio is not Pope and convene a Conclave, then they should also have the courage not only to deplore the present effects, but also their causes, which all date back to the Second Vatican Council.
The so-called “Cassiciacum thesis” takes its name from the town now called Cassago Brianza, in Lombardy, where in 387 Saint Augustine retreated to pray with his mother before receiving Baptism. This thesis, formulated in 1978 by Father Guérand des Lauriers, O.P, identifies in the post-conciliar Popes – from Montini to Bergoglio – an external acceptance of the Papacy tainted by an internal obstacle (the will to promote the new paradigms of the Second Vatican Council which contradict the perennial Magisterium of the Church) – an obstacle that prevents the communication by God of the divine charisma that normally belongs to the Vicar of Christ. Without this “objective and habitual intention to procure and realize the good and the purpose of the Church,” the post-conciliar popes would therefore be popes only materially, in that they were only canonically elected, and therefore properly “not Popes.”
The conciliar revolution – of which Bergoglio is the implacable executor – has as its aim the dissolution of Roman Catholicism into a false religion without dogmas that is of Masonic inspiration, a dissolution to be obtained through the parliamentarization of the Church on the model of civil institutions. This requires a downsizing of the papacy and the extinction of the Apostolic Succession, together with a radical upheaval of the ministerial Priesthood. For this reason, even if at the moment it is appropriate to suspend definitive judgment on the popes of the Council, it is necessary to put everything that they have produced “in parentheses,” so to speak – in particular the Catechism and the doctrinal teaching, the reform of the Mass and the Sacraments, and among these the rite of conferring Holy Orders.
What I can say is that, with respect to the theses of sedevacantism or sedeprivationism – which also have elements that can be shared in theory – it is not possible to believe that the Lord allowed His Church to remain eclipsed and deprived of the ordinary means of Grace – the Sacraments – for over sixty years, with Bishops and priests not validly ordained and therefore with invalid Masses and Sacraments. The mysterium iniquitatis cannot imply the failure of the assistance promised by Christ to the Church –
Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem sæculi (Mt 28:19). But on our part, it is urgent to restore the integrity of the
Depositum Fidei (
Lex credendi) and its prayerful expression (
Lex orandi) so that the gates of hell do not prevail.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
