Is Archbishop Viganò really in schism?

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Is Archbishop Viganò really in schism?
In this article we will examine the Vatican’s charge against Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and ask whether he is truly guilty of the crime of schism.



Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
don Elvir Tabaković, Can.Reg

Jul 29, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — On July 5, 2024, the Vatican declared that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò had automatically excommunicated himself because he was guilty of “the delict [crime] of schism.” 

In this article we will examine the Vatican’s charge against the archbishop and ask whether he is truly guilty of the crime of schism.


What is automatic excommunication?

Excommunication is “a censure or penalty whereby a delinquent or obstinate person is excluded from the communion of the faithful, until after abandoning his contumacy he is absolved.”[1]

The Church can exercise this power in two ways.

The first is by attaching the penalty of excommunication to certain specified crimes, so that if a person is guilty of one these crimes they are automatically excommunicated by that very fact. This is called excommunication latae sententiae. 

The second way is by passing a judicial sentence against a person who has been found guilty of a crime. This is called excommunication ferendae sententiae. 

The Vatican has declared Viganò is excommunicated latae sententiae because, they allege, he has committed the crime of schism. 

The Vatican document states that:

His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known. 

But does Viganò’s publicly expressed position really constitute evidence that he is guilty of the crime of schism?


What is schism?

Schism is defined as follows:

Schismatics are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.[2]

To be a member of the Catholic Church, one must submit to the authority which Jesus Christ, the Divine Head of the Church, exercises through His Vicar, the Roman Pontiff, and through the college of bishops in union with him. This power is threefold, that of sanctifying, teaching, and governing. 

Schism is the refusal to submit to the governing authority of the Church, and thus separates a person from the Church. Similarly, heresy, which is a refusal to submit to the teaching authority of the Church, also severs a person from membership. 

This teaching was clearly expressed by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis Christi, “On the Mystical Body of Christ”:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed… And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered – so the Lord commands – as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. 

He continued:

[N]ot every sin, however grave it may be, is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy.[3]

Monsignor Gerard Van Noort summarizes the teaching of Catholic theologians on schism:

Public schismatics are not members of the Church. They are not members because by their own action they sever themselves from the unity of Catholic communion. The term Catholic communion, as used here, signifies both cohesion with the entire body catholic (unity of worship, etc.), and union with the visible head of the Church (unity of government).[4]

It is clear then that anyone who refuses submission to the Supreme Pontiff is a schismatic, though it is important to make clear that there are forms of disobedience to legitimate authority which do not comprise rejection of the authority itself. Theologian Sylvester Hunter S.J. writes: 

The sin of schism specially so called is committed by one who, being baptized, by a public and formal act renounces subjection to the governors of the Church; also by one who formally and publicly takes part in any public religious worship which is set up in rivalry of that of the Church. It is not an act of schism to refuse obedience to a law or precept of the Supreme Pontiff, or other ecclesiastical Superior, provided this refusal does not amount to a disclaimer of all subjection to him.[5]

Does Viganò refuse submission to the Supreme Pontiff?

It is clear from his public statements that Viganò refuses submission to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who currently claims to occupy the See of St. Peter under the papal name of Francis. 

However, it is equally clear that Viganò does not, by this act, intend to refuse submission to the Supreme Pontiff because he does not believe that Francis holds that position. One clear example, taken from his statement in response to the Vatican’s accusation of schism, will suffice to express the archbishop’s position: 

I strongly reject the accusation of having torn the seamless garment of the Savior and of having departed from being under the Supreme Authority of the Vicar of Christ: in order to separate myself from ecclesial communion with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, I would have to have first been in communion with him, which is not possible since Bergoglio himself cannot be considered a member of the Church, due to his multiple heresies and his manifest alienness and incompatibility with the role he invalidly and illicitly holds.

It is clear therefore that Viganò intends to refuse submission to Francis, but does not intend to refuse submission to the Supreme Pontiff. He does not consider Francis to be the Supreme Pontiff.

Two questions therefore arise: 

• Is it schismatic to refuse submission to a doubtful claimant to the papacy?
  
• Are Francis’s claims to the papacy truly doubtful?
  

Is rejection of a doubtful pope schismatic?

To refuse submission to the Roman Pontiff, or to the Successors of the Apostles who govern the Church in union with him, is schismatic.

However, one has no obligation to obey a superior whose claim to an office is doubtful.

In their commentary on the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Fr. Francis X. Wernz and Fr. Peter Vidal state that it “would be rash to obey such a man who had not proved his title in law.” They explain further:

[J]urisdiction is essentially a relation between a superior who has the right to obedience and a subject who has the duty of obeying. Now when one of the parties to this relationship is wanting, the other necessarily ceases to exist also, as is plain from the nature of the relationship.[6]

In other words, a person only has an obligation to obey when there is someone who has the capacity to receive that obedience. One can only have the obligation to submit to a pope, when there is a pope to whom one can submit.

They continue:

However, if a pope is truly and permanently doubtful, the duty of obedience cannot exist towards him on the part of any subject. For the law, ‘Obedience is owed to the legitimately-elected successor of St. Peter,’ does not oblige if it is doubtful; and it most certainly is doubtful if the law has been doubtfully promulgated, for laws are instituted when they are promulgated, and without sufficient promulgation they lack a constitutive part, or essential condition. 

As explained elsewhere, for a law or command to be legitimate, it must be duly promulgated by a legitimate authority. If the legitimacy of an authority is doubtful, then so too is the law or command, and there can be no intrinsic obligation to observe it. If this were otherwise, it would lead to the absurd position that anyone with some claim to plausibility could claim to hold authority, and others would be bound to obey them. 

For example, if that were so, one would be obliged to obey someone who acted in the role of police officer, or army officer, or bishop, for as long as one was in doubt as to whether their claims were genuine. An obligation to obey doubtful authorities would be the end of legitimate authority and true freedom. 

Hence, with reference to the papacy, Wernz and Vidal continue:

But if the fact of the legitimate election of a particular successor of St. Peter is only doubtfully demonstrated, the promulgation is doubtful; hence that law is not duly and objectively constituted of its necessary parts, and it remains truly doubtful and therefore cannot impose any obligation. 

Indeed, it would be rash to obey such a man who had not proved his title in law.

And they continue:

The same conclusion is confirmed on the basis of the visibility of the Church. For the visibility of the Church consists in the fact that she possesses such signs and identifying marks that, when moral diligence is used, she can be recognized and discerned, especially on the part of her legitimate officers. But in the supposition we are considering, the pope cannot be found even after diligent examination. The conclusion is therefore correct that such a doubtful pope is not the proper head of the visible Church instituted by Christ.

If one cannot see, after due diligence has been deployed, that a man possesses all those signs and identifying marks proper to a pope – such as being male, baptized, publicly professing the Catholic faith, in communion with the members of the Church, in possession of the use of reason, and duly elected and accepted by the Church – then one cannot reasonably conclude that such a man is in fact the pope. (For more on what is required for a valid papal election see here.) 

A doubtful pope is to be regarded as not the pope. Indeed, there is a traditional maxim “papa dubius, papa nullus.” A doubtful pope is no pope. 

To refuse submission to a doubtful pope is an act of prudence, not an act of schism.

Wernz and Vidal write:

They cannot be numbered among the schismatics, who refuse to obey the Roman Pontiff because they consider his person to be suspect or doubtfully elected on account of rumors in circulation.[7]

This is the standard teaching of Catholic theologians. 

The renowned fifteenth century theologian Cardinal Cajetan states: 

If someone, for reasonable motive, holds the person of the pope in suspicion and refuses his presence and even his jurisdiction, he does not commit the delict of schism, not any other whatsoever, provided that he be ready to accept the pope were he not held in suspicion.[8]

And noted seventeenth century theologian Juan de Lugo comments:

[H]e will not be a schismatic who denies submission to the Pope because he doubts probably about his legitimate election or his authority.[9]

And mid-twentieth century theologian Rev. Ignatius J. Szal writes:

Nor is there any schism… if one refuses obedience inasmuch as one suspects the person of the Pope or the validity of his election, or if one resists him as the civil head of a state.[10]

Therefore, it is clear that to refuse submission to a claimant to the papacy because their claim is doubtful, is not schismatic. 

We must now ask whether the claims of Francis to the papacy are doubtful. 


Is Francis a doubtful pope? 

An increasing number of Catholics regard it as morally certain or at least probable, that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was never validly elected to the papal office or, if he was, has since lost that office.   

There are a number of different arguments that are put forward to support this position.

To do justice to all these arguments and provide them in their fullest and most comprehensive form, is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we will briefly summarise some of the more important arguments, while giving references to more detailed presentations or supporting material. 

(i) The argument from membership of the Church

It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that public heretics are not members of the Church. This doctrine has been explained in great detail in this article on public heresy and Church membership. 

Dutch theologian Monsignor G. Van Noort summarizes the position as follows:

Public heretics (and a fortiori, apostates) are not members of the Church. They are not members because they separate themselves from the unity of Catholic faith and from the external profession of that faith. Obviously, therefore, they lack one of the three factors – baptism, profession of the same faith, union with the hierarchy – pointed out by Pius XII as requisite for membership of the Church. The same pontiff has explicitly pointed out that, unlike other sins, heresy, schism and apostasy automatically sever a man from the Church.[11]

Monsignor Van Noort, like other theologians, makes clear that what severs a person from membership of the Church is the public nature of the heresy and not an individual’s personal culpability. He writes:

By the term public heretics at this point we mean all who externally deny a truth (for example Mary’s Divine Maternity), or several truths of divine and Catholic faith, regardless of whether the one denying does so ignorantly and innocently (a merely material heretic), or willfully and guiltily (a formal heretic).[12]

It has also been clearly demonstrated that Francis is a public heretic. For example, the 2017 filial correction identified numerous distinct heresies which Francis has publicly professed and never retracted, despite being publicly corrected. 

The pope, as head of the Church, must be a member of the Church, as theologian Rev. Sylvester Berry writes: 

He must be a member of the Church since no one can be the head of any society unless he be a member of that society.[13]

Therefore, if Francis is not a member of the Church, he cannot be pope. 

The argument can be expressed in the following syllogisms: 

  Major premise: A public heretic is not a member of the Catholic Church

  Minor premise: Francis is a public heretic

  Conclusion: Francis is not a member of the Catholic Church


  Major premise: The pope is a member of the Catholic Church

  Minor premise: Francis is not a member of the Catholic Church

  Conclusion: Francis is not the pope.

Another line of argument that could be pursued is that Francis is a public schismatic, and therefore neither a member of the Church nor the pope, due to his persecution of the traditional rites of the Roman Church. 

As famed sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Francisco Suarez, the Doctor Eximius, wrote: “And in this second mode the Pope could be schismatic, in case he did not want to have due union and coordination with the whole body of the Church as would be the case if he tried to excommunicate the whole Church, or if he wanted to subvert all the ecclesiastical ceremonies founded on apostolic tradition, as we observed by Cajetan (ad II-II, q. 39) and, with greater amplitude, Torquemada (1. 4, c.11).”[14]


(ii) Argument from lack of intention to fulfil the office of Pope

Archbishop Viganò has argued that Francis did not assume the papacy because he never intended to carry out the papal office. His position can be read in detail here. Others have put forward similar arguments over the years, such as proponents of the Thesis of Cassiacum. 

The general position could be expressed as follows:

  Major premise: A man who resolutely refuses to fulfil the duties of an office which he putatively holds either tacitly
    resigns, or   never accepted the office to start with.

  Minor premise: Francis resolutely refuses to fulfil the duties of the office of the papacy which he putatively holds. 

  Conclusion: Francis has either tacitly resigned or never accepted the office to start with.


(iii) Argument from the unity of the Church

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church possesses four marks by which she is to be always easily identified. These are the marks of (i) unity, (ii) sanctity, (iii) catholicity, and (iv) apostolicity.

These marks must always be clearly visible. As the First Vatican Council taught: 

[T]o enable us to fulfil the obligation to embrace the true faith and to persistently persevere in it, God has instituted the Church through his only-begotten Son, and has bestowed on it manifest marks of that institution, that it may be recognized by all men as the guardian and teacher of the revealed Word.[15]

The first of these marks, that of unity, manifests itself as (i) unity of faith, (ii) unity of worship, and (iii) unity of government. The Church is always visibly united in faith, such that that unity is obvious to any honest observer. This unity of faith is brought about by the submission of all the members of the Church to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Church. 

Monsignor Van Noort explains:

The unity of faith which Christ decreed without qualification consists in this, that everyone accepts the doctrines presented for belief by the Church’s teaching office. In fact, our Lord requires nothing other than the acceptance by all of the preaching of the apostolic college, a body which is to continue forever; or, what amounts to the same thing, of the pronouncements of the Church’s teaching office, which He Himself set up as the rule of faith. And the essential unity of faith definitely requires that everyone hold each and every doctrine clearly and distinctly presented for belief by the Church’s teaching office; and that everyone hold these truths explicitly or at least implicitly, i.e., by acknowledging the authority of the Church which teaches them.[16]

The visible principle of this unity is the pope, who is the supreme teacher of the faith. By being submissive to the teaching of the pope, the Church is united in that remarkable unity of faith which is one of her visible marks. The word principle here means origin. The Church is visibly united because every member submits to the teaching of the pope. 

But it is quite clear that Francis is not the cause of the visible unity of the Catholic faithful. In fact, rejection of the heresies taught by Francis is something that is common to all faithful Catholics. Indeed, if a person were to submit to the whole body of doctrine proposed by Francis they would, as a result of that submission, depart from the visible unity of the faith.

As Francis is not the visible principle of unity of the Catholic Church, he cannot be the pope.


(iv) Argument from the disciplinary infallibility of the Church

This argument is based on the infallibility of the Church’s universal laws. 

The pope can never make universal laws or establish disciplines which are intrinsically evil. 

Pope Pius IV in the 1578 papal bull Auctorem Fidei, condemned the following proposition: 

‘…the Church, which is ruled by the Spirit of God, could establish a discipline not merely useless and insupportable for the Christian spirit, but even dangerous, harmful, and conducive to superstition and to materialism.’

Dom Prosper Gueranger summarized the standard teaching of theologians: 

It is an article of Catholic doctrine that the Church is infallible in the laws in which her general discipline consists – so that it is not permissible to maintain, without breaking with orthodoxy, that a regulation emanating from the sovereign power in the Church with the intention of obliging all the faithful, or at least a whole class of the faithful, could contain or favor error in faith or in morals.   

It follows from this that, apart from the duty of submission in conduct, imposed by general discipline on all those whom it governs, we must recognize a ‘doctrinal value’ in ecclesiastical regulations like this.[17]

Cardinal Louis Billot sums up this doctrine as follows: 

[T]he Church is assisted by God so that she can never institute a discipline which would be in any way opposed to the rule of faith or to evangelical holiness.[18]

The Church is a sound guide. The faithful can always submit to her laws and disciplines, assured that they will assist souls to heaven. However, Francis’s norms lead souls into error and sin. For example, in Amoris Laetitia he has given permission for those living in public adultery to receive Holy Communion and in Fiducia Supplicans he has permitted the blessing of same-sex “couples.” 

In establishing dangerous norms for the whole Church, Francis would seem to be doing that which a true Roman Pontiff could never do. 

These are just four of a number of a different theological approaches that could be taken to demonstrate that Francis is not the Roman Pontiff. Each one will be expounded with greater depth and rigour in articles to follow. 

These are arguments based on sound theological principles and they render the claims of Francis to the papacy to be, at the very least, doubtful. 

Other Catholics have raised doubts about the conclave which elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In particular, they have pointed to machinations by the “Saint Gallen group,” a self-confessed “mafia” of cardinals and bishops who admitted to plotting to secure the “election” of Bergolio. More can be read about the “Saint Gallen Mafia” here. 

Some have argued that this plotting may have invalidated the papal election, because they hold the election to have been governed by norms established by Dominici Gregis of John Paul II, No. 78, of which states: “Confirming the prescriptions of my Predecessors, I likewise forbid anyone, even if he is a Cardinal, during the Pope’s lifetime and without having consulted him, to make plans concerning the election of his successor, or to promise votes, or to make decisions in this regard in private gatherings.”

No. 76 of the same document states: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.” Other Catholics have raised doubts about the resignation of Benedict XVI and its impact on the validity of the 2013 conclave. 

While the present author considers the theological arguments to be the more compelling and more fruitful approach to the question, there is no question that doubts about the conclave have been a cause for some to doubt the validity of the papacy of Francis. 


Is Viganò a schismatic?

In this article we have seen that refusal to submit to the Supreme Pontiff is schismatic. 

However, we have also seen that refusal to submit to a doubtful pontiff is an act of prudence, not of schism.

The strong theological arguments that can be made against Francis’s claim to hold the Roman Pontificate make him, at best, a doubtful pontiff. 

Therefore, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò must be regarded as “not guilty” of the grave crime of schism. 




References
↑1 Rev. Joachim Salaverri, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, p432-33.
↑2 St. Thomas Aquinas,  ST II.II q.39 a.1.
↑3 Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, No. 22.
↑4 Mgr G. Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology Volume II: Christ’s Church, (6th edition, 1957, trans. Castelot & Murphy), p243.
↑5 Rev. Sylvester Joseph Hunter S.J., Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, (London, 1896), No. 216.
↑6 Wernz, P. F-X, and Vidal, P. Petri,. Ius Canonicum ad Codicis Normam Exactum, Universitatis Gregorianae Universitas Gregoriana, Rome, 1938.
↑7 Wernz, Vidal, Ius Canonicum, Vol vii, 1937, n. 398.
↑8 Cajetan, Commentarium, 1540, II-II, 39, 1.
↑9 Juan de Lugo: Disp., De Virtute Fidei Divinae, pp 646-7, Disp xxv, sect iii, nn. 35-8, in Disputationes scholasticae et morales de virtute fidei diuinae, 1696.
↑10 Rev. Ignatius J. Szal, The Communication of Catholics with Schismatics, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC, 1948, p2.
↑11 Van Noort, Christ’s Church, p241.
↑12 Van Noort, Christ’s Church, p241.
↑13 Rev Sylvester Berry, Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, (Mount St Mary’s Seminary, 1955), p227-28.
↑14 Cited in Can a Pope be a Heretic? by Arnaldo Xavier da Silveira.
↑15 First Vatican Council, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith”, 24 April 1870.
↑16 Van Noort, Christ’s Church, pp 127-28.
↑17 Dom Prosper Guéranger, “Troisième lettre à Mgr l’évêque d’Orléans”, in Institutions liturgiques, second edition, Palmé, 1885, vol. 4, pp. 458-459.
↑18 Card. Billot, De Ecclesia Christi, Rome, 1927, volume I, p. 477