The Catacombs - Archbishop Viganò

Opinion: Abp. Vigano accuses Clinton of Benedict XVI resignation trigger

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 16:20:22 +0000

Abp. Vigano accuses Clinton of Benedict XVI resignation trigger – Vatican banking shutdown
Archbishop Viganò stated that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta caused the shutdown of the Vatican banking ATMs

that were thought to have pressured Benedict XVI to resign.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Exsurge Domine

Apr 18, 2026
Editor’s note: The following text is taken from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s X account, first published on April 18, 2026, and republished here in full.

(LifeSiteNews) — It is understandable that many Catholics feel offended and scandalized by the statements made by the President of the United States regarding Leo, even if one certainly cannot claim that Jorge Bergoglio refrained during his “reign” from launching attacks and provocations against Donald Trump.

Moreover, the latter’s intervention is contextualized by the statements orchestrated against him this week on the CBS, propaganda program 60 Minutes by three utterly corrupt cardinals: Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin, three prelates who are notoriously ultra-Bergoglian and ultra-progressive, part of the network of the serial abuser Theodore McCarrick, inextricably linked to the radical “woke” Left, and key electors and closest collaborators of Robert Prevost.

When asked by journalists about Donald Trump’s post, Leo replied: “I am not afraid of the Trump administration, nor of boldly proclaiming the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am called to do, and what the Church is called to do.” These words, apparently indisputable coming from Prevost, can however shift sharply in meaning depending on how they are interpreted. They may simply mean, “I have no fear of civil power,” thereby asserting the superiority of the Catholic Church’s spiritual authority over any earthly authority. Or, in a diametrically opposite sense, they may mean, “I have no fear of this administration” – implying that, in other instances, he deems it legitimate to feel fear and to refrain from “boldly proclaiming the message of the Gospel.” And immediately, one is reminded of how often we have seen the Vatican “fear” other administrations, both in Washington – especially when the interference of Hillary Clinton and John Podesta went so far as to block in the Vatican banking transactions via the SWIFT network – and in Beijing, where the Holy See is officially involved with the communist dictatorship, through a secret Agreement, not to “forcefully proclaim the message of the Gospel,” rubber-stamping the episcopal appointments of the Chinese Patriotic Association without them being deemed a schismatic act, unlike the Consecrations at Ecône.

In numerous other instances, Prevost, and before him Bergoglio, have seen fit to remain silent of their own accord, perhaps because their acquiescence, if not outright enthusiastic cooperation, was precisely what the Powers That Be expected from the Conciliar and Synodal Church. Indeed, no sooner had the Trump Administration cut off the stream of funds that USAID was channeling to the USCCB and various bodies of the American Catholic Church to facilitate immigration, than an open war erupted on the part of all those cardinals and bishops whom Clinton, Obama, and Biden had, until that moment, showered with money. During those years of plenty, Bergoglio and the entire American Episcopate took great care not to disrupt their idyll with the White House, thanks, in part, to the good offices of then-Cardinal McCarrick, and paid scant heed to the pro-abortion, LGBTQ+, and gender-related policies promoted by “Catholic” Democrats. The mere suggestion of excommunicating “pro-choice” politicians was deemed an intolerable intrusion by a Hierarchy that had itself made it abundantly clear it had no intention whatsoever of taking such a step.

Thus, a single phrase, extrapolated from its context – “I am not afraid of the Trump administration, nor of boldly proclaiming the message of the Gospel” – might appear entirely unobjectionable. Yet, when viewed within a broader, more coherent framework, it leaves one utterly perplexed, for it directly contradicts the very words Leo uttered on that same occasion: “We are not politicians. (…) I do not believe that the message of the Gospel should be instrumentalized, as some are currently doing.” And while there are undoubtedly those who instrumentalize “the message of the Gospel” through the pseudo-messianic delusions typical of American televangelists, there are also most certainly those the within the Vatican who do not hesitate to instrumentalize that very same Gospel to lend a veneer of legitimacy and morality to the agenda of ethnic replacement and the Islamization of the West: an agenda doggedly pursued by the globalist elite through the Agenda 2030. This is an Agenda that Trump detests entirely, but which the Holy See, Leo, the USCCB, and a host of pseudo-Catholic charities have elevated to the status of a new globalist totem within their own synodal program. Nor should we forget the doctrinal ratification that Bergoglio bestowed upon the pandemic farce and mass vaccination, just as he did for climate fraud and “sustainable development goals” with his pseudo-encyclical Laudato Si’, or the blessing that Prevost imparted to a block of ice specially shipped from Antarctica during a truly cringeworthy ceremony at Castel Gandolfo.

Despite his insistence that he is not a politician, Leo had no qualms about granting a private audience on April 9 to David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s chief strategist and former senior adviser at the White House. One question is more than legitimate: Did Axelrod perhaps come to the Vatican to dictate a specific political strategy to Leo, much as Hillary Clinton and John Podesta had previously interfered to pressure Benedict XVI into abdicating and then facilitate the election of Bergoglio?

The paradox is made manifest by Trump himself: “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!” Which is absolutely true, more so than President Trump could possibly imagine.

While the Democratic administrations have repeatedly and improperly interfered in the governance of the Church of Rome, untimely and inappropriate interventions by the Vatican regarding Washington have hardly been lacking either. And while nobody was surprised by the invective of the Jesuit from Buenos Aires, who labeled Trump “unchristian” for declaring his intention to repatriate hordes of illegal immigrants, the pronouncements of the Augustinian from Chicago regarding immigration, and more recently concerning the war, have certainly left observers bewildered: “God blesses no conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, never sides with those who yesterday wielded the sword and today drop bombs,” Leo said. Surely he could have elaborated, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger did in 2003: “Given the new weapons that make possible a destruction extending far beyond groups of combatants, today we must ask ourselves whether it is still licit to admit the very existence of a just war.” Or, better yet, Leo could have recalled the words of Pius XII: “A people threatened by, or already the victim of, unjust aggression, if it wishes to act in a Christian manner, cannot remain in a state of passive indifference; moreover, the solidarity of the family of nations forbids others from behaving as mere spectators, adopting an attitude of impassive neutrality.” (Pius XII, Radio Message for Christmas, 24 December 1948)

But Prevost – and herein lies the true problem – does not speak with the voice of the Church: his words of condemnation against any war whatsoever ultimately serve to legitimize even unjust wars, thereby depriving the victim of aggression of the right to self-defense, given that even a defensive war would be deemed unjust. This error is akin to asserting that all religions are equivalent, that moral precepts must be adapted to contingent circumstances (see Amoris Lætitia and Fiducia Supplicans), or that capital punishment is contrary to the Gospel. For in these instances, too, the one who ought to serve as a point of reference in discerning Good from Evil betrays his own mandate by granting equal rights to error and to Truth, rather than assuming his moral responsibility to condemn the former and defend the latter.

Of course, if Leo ever dared to speak with the authoritative voice of the Catholic Church, he would find himself opposed not only by the pacifist Left (in whose ranks Prevost has served since the 1980s, joining the Young Augustinians movement (The resonance with the Young Turks movement, of clear Masonic aspiration (albeit perhaps unintentional), will not escape notice.), or Augustinians for Peace which was sponsored by the Italian Communist Party), but also by the “theo-con” Right, with which quite a few Catholic conservatives are dangerously aligned. The tolerance that the Conciliar Hierarchy currently enjoys is, in fact, conditional upon its acceptance and promotion not only of the globalist agenda of the U.N., the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the Council for Inclusive Capitalism With the Vatican founded by Bergoglio in collaboration with Lynn Forester de Rothschild, but also of the liberal agenda of the Anglo-Zionist lobby. In other words, it depends on two supranational powers operating on seemingly opposing fronts yet pursuing a common objective: the establishment of a New World Order, in which, regardless of which side ultimately prevails in the conflict, the sole victim of persecution will invariably be Catholicism – specifically, that Traditional Catholicism which Rome is striving by every means to destroy or subsume by “conciliarizing” and “synodalizing” it.

According to Trump’s admonition, “Leo should get his act together as Pope (…) and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” Indeed, the election of an American “pope” from Chicago, steeped in heretical doctrines acquired during his years of ministry in Latin America, devoted to the cult of Pachamama, and ideologically aligned – by his own admission – with the worst progressivism of the infamous Cardinals Bernardin and Cupich, appears to have been deliberately orchestrated to serve as a counterweight to the President of the United States. If his role was intended to be – as has indeed become evident in recent months – that of continuing the conciliar and synodal revolution, it comes as no surprise that Bergoglio meticulously paved the way for his ecclesiastical ascent, ensuring that he would succeed him and not undo the twelve years of systematic dismantling of the Catholic edifice and total subservience to the globalist establishment carried out by the Argentine Jesuit. In the face of these concrete demonstrations of continuity between Bergoglio and Prevost, the silence of the sparse, moderately conservative minority within the College of Cardinals confirms their complicity and inadequacy.

The unanimous chorus of the mainstream media and the neo-papists serves as proof that Leo is not speaking as a pope but rather as a standard-bearer for anti-Trumpism, so to speak. This is because the accolades come from figures – both within and outside the ecclesial body – who possess nothing of the Catholic spirit, and who would be the very first to crucify Prevost were he to dare express even the slightest doubt regarding the untouchable “dogmas” of the radical Left. Furthermore, this defense of Prevost is motivated precisely by the fact that the “pope” has chosen to play the politician, thereby demonstrating a partisanship that discredits both the Papacy and the Catholic Church in the eyes of the world. For this reason, Leo truly ought to “get his act together as Pope” – a task that is, however, exceedingly difficult for someone like him, who was chosen precisely because his support for the globalist agenda would be not merely coerced, but spontaneous and convinced; and because Leo is being kept under close watch by the emissaries of those Powers who have absolutely no intention of relinquishing the positions they have secured within the Catholic Church, now that they stand so tantalizingly close to the finish line.

When Our Lord Jesus Christ is recognized as King of the Nations, no Antichrist will dare to claim the title of Messiah. And when He is recognized as King and High Priest within the Church, no Vicar of His will dare to subvert His teaching or demolish His Church. If this is happening today, before our very eyes, it is because we are living in eschatological times in which Our Lord has been dethroned from His Divine Kingship by the Nations, and from His Eternal Priesthood by His own Ministers. Therefore, in judging present events, let us not allow ourselves to be beguiled by abstract speculations, nor let us attempt to alter reality to suit our own illusions. Let us view all that is unfolding through a supernatural lens, for this is the only way to preserve, amidst our present tribulations, that peace of soul which the world neither knows how to give, nor can give (Jn 14:27).

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America

Viterbo, 17 April MMXXVI
S.cti Aniceti Papæ et Martyris

Archbishop Viganò: "But actually, there is something that unites Burke and Martin..."

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 14:04:45 +0000

Archbishop Viganò: Address to the Forum of the Future 2050

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:15:33 +0000

Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò
Oportet Illum regnare
Address to the Forum of the Future: 2050
Moscoq, June 9-10, 2025

Dear Friends,

Allow me to offer my greetings to the civil and religious authorities present today and to thank the organizers of this Forum for the invitation extended to me.

The presence of illustrious scientists, philosophers, intellectuals, and sociologists, leads me to give my intervention an eminently theological imprint. The increasingly frenetic evolution of the events of recent years – precisely because of this race towards the precipice that recalls the Latin saying Motus in fine velocior – certainly requires a great capacity for analysis of contingent facts, but it also requires an overall vision that cannot disregard the spiritual dimension of our being. Without this transcendent vision we exclude the fundamental aspect of our existence as rational creatures, restored to the life of Grace in Baptism and destined to love, adore and serve God our Lord and Creator. Without this transcendent vision, we disregard the ontological reality – which the Most Excellent Prelates of the Orthodox Church share with the Catholic Church – of the universal Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who as true God and true Man is truly Pantocrator, the Sovereign of earthly societies, the Prince of Time and History, the Alpha and Omega.

In this conference many of you will hear proposals and projects for an alternative Great Reset that counters the coup d’état of the globalist elite; for a “world order” based on national sovereignty, on the common good, on the primacy of man over machine, of reason over passions, of the spirit over the body. This new order already exists, and it is new because it is founded on Christ, King and High Priest: it was inaugurated with the Incarnation, accomplished with the Passion and Death of the Savior, crowned with victory with His glorious Resurrection, and has been perpetuated down the centuries through the sanctifying action of Grace through the Sacraments. This “order” – which we could more properly call κόσμος, in opposition to the χάος of the Revolution – is the societas christiana, which the Eastern Roman Empire was able to embody in the sacred vision of Authority, and in the equating of the person of the Emperor – the Cæsar, from which derives the Russian title Czar – with the Apostles, not only due to the prestige of the function of government, but also and above all due to the moral responsibility that rests on rulers. The Sovereign, in the Byzantine Christian vision and then in the medieval European vision, is Christ’s lieutenant, and his authority is exercised within the limits and with the purposes established by Christ. And it is precisely against this fundamental point that the destructive fury of the Revolution has been unleashed: in order to oust the legitimate rulers, to deprive them of the sacredness of their royal Anointing, to make them self-referential and therefore potentially tyrannical. The illusion that the people can govern themselves has served to transfer the exercise of temporal authority into the hands of an elite that is answerable to no one, neither to God nor to the people. And today, amidst the moral rubble of an apostate and rebellious West, which has reached the point of trampling on the most sacrosanct principles of the Natural Law, this subversive élite gathered in very powerful lobbies and in possession of enormous financial resources is preparing to make the citizens’ vote useless and superfluous, after having interfered in electoral processes and subverted the popular will. Emissaries of supranational organizations have infiltrated governments, the heads of institutions, ministries, courts, law enforcement, universities, the world of culture, and even the Church. It is no mystery that they are linked to their masters by very serious conflicts of interest and kept under blackmail because of their corrupt vices and perverse lifestyle. The arrogance of this treacherous political class is justified only by the presumption of impunity and the illusion of being able to escape Justice.

It is not for me, as a Successor of the Apostles, to give indications as to how to solve the problems that loom on the international scene. I can, however, point out to you the infallible principles which our holy religion has shown to be amply valid and tested by the experience of the centuries: they are enunciated in the Gospel, proclaimed in the Divine Liturgy, and depicted in the mosaics of our ancient basilicas, from Hagia Sophia in Constantinople to San Marco in Venice, from Saint Basil in Moscow to Saint Vitale in Ravenna. These principles can be summed up in the image of Christ seated on a throne, with the royal robes, the crown, the scepter and the sphera mundi. The Kingship of Our Lord is the foundation of social order, concord among peoples, the prosperity of nations, and the salvation of the human race. If the work of Satan is so fierce in opposing the Lordship of Christ, it is because it is the true and only bulwark against barbarism and against the establishment of the kingdom of the Antichrist. Where Christian society has been replaced by the ideologies of the world, it is only ruin and destruction. Where Christ reigns, and where the rulers recognize Christ as their King, the Revolution recedes defeated.

You have set yourselves the deadline of 2050: you have twenty-five years to organize a spiritual rebirth that will form the upcoming generations in the Faith and Morals of your fathers. Begin therefore with training, education, schools, and universities: they must be forges in which the ruling class of tomorrow can rediscover the pride of calling itself Christian, a Christian ruling class that lives out in daily life those principles it professes. Protect the natural family, founded on the indissoluble union between man and woman and aimed at procreation and the education of children. Encourage all forms of agriculture, livestock, fishing, crafts, and business that ensure independence and autonomy for families and small communities. Give protection to all those inalienable rights that globalism threatens and tramples on. And punish with the rigors of the Law all those subversive associations and organizations that interfere in the sovereignty of nations: the tolerance shown these cabals of criminals devoted to evil is an unforgivable weakness, especially when they – as we know – attack the very existence of the human race and plan the reduction of the population through wars, famines, epidemics, mass sterilization, and the moral destruction of man.

Restore to Christ the Nations that belong to Him, because only by doing so will you restore that divine Order – the κόσμος – which the Revolution wants to subvert. There can be no peace or justice where the Prince of Peace and the Just Judge do not reign. Believing that we can disregard this reality is an illusion, a chimera that is a prelude to the most terrible failure. The Divine Master taught us: “Without Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:6). How then will we be able to hope for the end of this infernal nightmare which the globalist elite desires to impose if not by returning to Christ? This epochal battle between Good and Evil, between God and Satan, can only be won if we side with Christ, who on the Cross conquered the world. And in the Cross of Christ – sign of contradiction, scandal for the Jews, foolishness for the Gentiles (1 Cor 1:24) – we will be able to understand that the trials, even terrible ones, to which we are subjected can be the premise of victory, if we know how to face them, not with human strength, but by placing all our hope in the One who is truly Almighty.

On May 29, 1453, Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos defended the walls of Constantinople to the death, besieged by the Turks. This marked the end of the Eastern Roman Empire and, for historians, the end of the Middle Ages. The legacy of Constantinople has partly passed to the Christian Russia of the Tsars, the last victims – along with Charles of Habsburg – of the murderous fury of atheistic materialism and the conspiracy of the Masonic Lodges. But still much of that heritage of faith, culture, history, and heroism remains alive and throbbing: just as the faith of Christians persecuted by the communist regime remained alive and throbbing for seventy years. When we recite the Our Father, we say Thy kingdom come: this is no mere wish, but a program of life, inseparable from Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Because the κόσμος unites earth to heaven, just as Our Lord sums up in Himself the divine nature and the human nature.

I urge you, dear friends, to make my wishes your own. If Christ – the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End – will be the center of your private and public life, you will be able to give concrete application to the principles that inspire you, and you will be able to recognize and effectively combat all that opposes them.

Through the intercession of the Theotokos, Our Lady and Our Queen, Queen of families, of societies, of nations, and of the whole world, I invoke upon all of you the Blessings of the Most Holy Trinity.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

June 10, 2025
Feria III infra Oct. Pentecostes

Archbishop Viganò: Homily on Pentecost Sunday

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:06:03 +0000

Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò
Veni, Sancte Spiritus

Homily on Pentecost Sunday

Veni, Sancte Spíritus,
et emítte cǽlitus
lucis tuæ rádium.

Veni, pater páuperum,
veni, dator múnerum,
veni, lumen córdium.

Come, O Holy Spirit: send down from heaven a ray of Your light. Light of Truth of the Father and the Son, Fire of Charity that proceeds from Both, Flame of hope in the midst of tribulations. Make Your heavenly perfections shine on this poor rebellious world, on this Your Church eclipsed by false shepherds and mercenaries, on the faithful and their priests, on every soul that the Eternal Son of the Father, with Your Divine cooperation, has redeemed by Incarnating Himself and facing the Passion for the Redemption of our sins. Make Your Church, today humiliated, once again Domina gentium: let the Light of Truth that Our Lord has ordered her to preach shine forth; let the voice of holy Pastors, Doctors of the Faith, resound once more in the faithful transmission of the unchanged doctrine.

Come, Light of hearts: enlighten the intellect and inflame the heart of pope Leo so that he may no longer be Simon, but Peter. May he recognize and condemn the errors and deviations of the conciliar and synodal church, restoring the Bride of the Lamb to her role as Mother and Teacher of all peoples, the only Ark of Salvation, the only safe harbor in the raging storm. Come, O Paraclete, and make resound from our pulpits what Our Lord taught us: This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn 17:3).

Come and guide Leo in the restoration of the Church and the Papacy, so that he may fully exercise the authority that the Supreme and Eternal Pontiff has conferred on Peter and his legitimate Successors. Inspire in him docility to Your counsels, determination to guard and confirm the Flock of the Lord in the unity of the one Catholic and Apostolic Faith, and trust in Your infallible help to face the enemies of Christ, not with human strength, but in the humble following of the Savior and in conformity with His Divine Will.

Come, O Father of the poor: come to fill with Your gifts those who humbly recognize themselves as being in need of everything, those who realistically understand that without Your supernatural light our hearts wander in darkness.

Consolátor óptime,
dulcis hospes ánimæ,
dulce refrigérium.

In labóre réquies,
in æstu tempéries,
in fletu solácium.

Come, Consoler: instill peace in Your faithful, shaken by the storm that rages, in our hearts torn by the Passion that the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ now faces, dragged before a new Sanhedrin, following in the footsteps of the Divine Master. Descend, O Spirit, to dwell in our soul, making it a worthy dwelling place of the Most Holy Trinity. Grant a truce to the suffocating battle that Your servants face daily in bearing witness to the Son, from Whom with the Father You proceed.

Give rest to our labors, coolness in the sultry heat of the desert that we cross on our way toward the heavenly Homeland, and relief to the tears of Your Bride humiliated by unworthy ministers and lukewarm faithful.

You who vomit those who are mediocre from Your mouth (Rev 3:16), compensate with Your Grace for our infidelities, our weaknesses, our hesitations. Make us courageous soldiers of Christ, guide the Ministers of Your Church so that they may be an example to us and not a scandal, and so that they may allow themselves to be guided by You on the path of eternal salvation along with the flock that the Lord has entrusted to them.

O lux beatíssima,
reple cordis íntima
tuórum fidélium.

Sine tuo númine,
nihil est in hómine
nihil est innóxium.

You who are the purest light that leads to the glory of Heaven, fill the hearts of Your faithful, so that we recognize that without You, without Your protection, we are nothing, and nothing in us is without fault. In the midst of our present trials, in the pressing siege of a world hostile to the True and the Good, renew in us and in the entire ecclesial body the certainty of the final victory, and the awareness that the Cross that Our Lord has assigned to us can be carried only with Your help, only with Your Grace.

Lava quod est sórdidum,
riga quod est áridum,
sana quod est sáucium.

Flecte quod est rígidum,
fove quod est frígidum,
rege quod est dévium.

Wash away the sins with which the Pastors of Your Church are stained; irrigate Her parched clods with the regenerating water of Your Grace and with the zeal of holy preachers of the Gospel; heal the bleeding wounds that afflict Her because of the infidelity of Her Hierarchy and its members. Bend, O Paraclete Spirit, the stiffness of our necks, too often inclined to compromise; warm our hearts hardened by the chill of insensitivity and selfishness; give support to our weaknesses, restoring by Grace the Divine Order that our sins have shattered.

Purify the ecclesial body, O Consoling Spirit. Cleanse the filth that disfigures the face of Your Bride; eradicate the errors and deviations that frustrate Her mission; restore to Her the triple crown that encircles Her head, the scepter of Her Apostolic mission, the authority and authoritativeness of her Apostles.

Da tuis fidélibus,
in te confidéntibus,
sacrum septenárium.

Da virtútis méritum,
da salútis éxitum,
da perénne gáudium. Amen.

Grant to your faithful, who place their hopes in you, the supernatural help of your Gifts. Grant the recognition of merit for our good deeds, the grace of eternal salvation in abandoning this valley of tears, the joy of blessedness in contemplating the Most Holy Trinity. And, just as after the humiliation and torments of the Passion the Victorious Savior rose from the dead, so now may the passio Ecclesiæ that leads her to Calvary soon turn into triumph and glory, showing again to the people the true face of the Mother of the Saints, image of the Supernal City (A. Manzoni).

Come, Divine Consoler: descend on the Font in which souls are reborn to the life of your Grace. Descend upon your Priests, and confirm with your power what their hands bless; cleanse the souls they absolve; accompany in their agony the dying who entrust themselves to you. Descend upon Christian spouses, who today are exposed to the fierce attack of the enemy: inspire in them the determination to protect and educate their children in Your Holy Law. Descend upon our altars, O Sanctifying Spirit: descend and make the Holy Sacrifice offered by your Ministers acceptable to the Most Holy Trinity. Come and bless the offering and the expiation that they raise to the Divine Majesty on behalf of Your holy people.

Come, O Holy Spirit: fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the Flame of Your Charity. You who are Infinite Charity that proceeds from the Father and the Son. To you, the One and Only Trinity, be honor and glory forever and ever. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

8 June MMXXV
Dominica Pentecostes

Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the Ascension of the Lord

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 10:57:55 +0000

Homily on the Ascension of the Lord
Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò
Modicum

Modicum et jam non videbitis me,
et iterum modicum et videbitis me,
quia vado ad Patrem.

John 16:16

During the singing of the Gospel we have just witnessed the Paschal Candle being extinguished, symbolizing the Ascension of Christ to the Father, Forty Days after the Resurrection. Some paintings represent the scene of the Ascension showing us the Apostles looking upwards, where sometimes we see the entire figure of the Lord and sometimes only His feet; in others, it is as if we saw what the Lord saw as He ascended, that is, his own feet and further down the absorbed faces of the Apostles. They are two different perspectives of the same scene, and it is precisely on this different perspective that I would like to pause with you as we meditate about the Mystery of the Ascension.

The reason why I believe that a meditation on this theme can be spiritually useful is that all reality, in the Immutable Eternity of God and in the frenetic becoming of time, reveals the Divine Order that unites the Creator Father to creatures, the Redeemer Son to those redeemed, and the Sanctifying Spirit to sanctified believers. And this wonderful intertwining between supernatural and earthly things, between spirit and body, has been definitively established by the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, who in Our Lord Jesus Christ sees the human nature and the divine nature united in the fulfillment of the Redemption. Christ the Man intercedes for sinful men, Christ God offers Himself to the Father to infinitely repair the infinite offenses against the infinite Majesty of God. We cannot conceive of Redemption without Incarnation, nor Incarnation without Charity towards God and towards our neighbor. And it is this perfection of our Holy Religion that shows it indubitably to be divine: only a God who is Love (1 John 4:16) can conceive of the folly of incarnating Himself to redeem the very creature that has rebelled against Him. Only an incarnate God can deign to remain among His own, forty days after being resurrected, postponing His corporeal return to the glory of Heaven.

We ponder the Ascension from below like the disciples, and we see the Lord departing after having promised the Apostles the sending of the Holy Spirit, who will burst into the Cenacle ten days hence. We see His feet, the cloths of the robe, and the clouds that open up to reveal the heavenly Court. We consider the Ascension as a moment of separation and deprivation, because we see the Lord ascend and leave this world in a sort of long parenthesis between His departure and His glorious return at the end of time. We see ourselves as fighters in a long and exhausting war, in which we have been left without a King and with weak or even traitorous generals. We are like the Jews left at the foot of Sinai by Moses, tempted to build a golden calf.

Instead, we ought to know how to look at the Ascension from above, as the Lord saw it: the Apostles becoming smaller and smaller, their features becoming more and more indistinct, while the dazzling light of Paradise approaches above us, and the praises of the angelic Choirs become clearer; while the doors of the heavenly Jerusalem open not only for the King of kings, but also for the holy souls of the Old Law, freed from Limbo on Easter Eve. We should consider the Ascension as the necessary premise of Pentecost, and Pentecost as the indispensable vehicle of Grace that prepares us to fight, to conquer, and to deserve the palm of victory. The absence of our King and Lord gives us the opportunity to testify to Him of our fidelity: not when He conquers and triumphs over His enemies; but when everyone, even His generals, betray Him and go over to the adversary. And just as among the Jews there were those who knew how to await the return of Moses with the tablets of the Law without building reassuring idols, so – and even more so – in the Church there have been, there still are and there always will be those who keep in mind the words of the Savior: A little while and you will no longer see me; a little while and you will see me again, because I am going to the Father (Jn 16:16). A little while and you will see me again: you will not know the day or the hour, because the master will come like a thief in the night, like the Bridegroom awaited by the wise virgins.

We should, dear faithful, understand that we are the ones who must reach the Lord in Heaven, because that is our true Homeland: Quæ sursum sunt quærite, the Divine Master told us: If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth (Col 3:1-2). In this light, human contingencies acquire their just weight, because they are brought back to that κόσμος of which Our Lord is the true and absolute Pantocrator, Lord of all things, Master of time and history. Instaurare omnia in Christo (Eph 1:10) means precisely this: to recapitulate, to bring back to the very first principle, to recognize the Lordship of Christ. And therefore, to be able to read the Divine promise of Non prævalebunt (Mt 16, 18) in the awareness of both the Cross and the Resurrection, of the necessary battle as well as of the indefectible victory.

If we understand that the earthly events that involve all of humanity and each of us individually are indefectibly intertwined with the eternity of God; if we understand that our Faith is not the human and immanent response to the need to believe, but the trusting and conscious adhesion to the perfect work of a God who wants us saved and holy; if we contemplate the Ascension as a mirror of the glorious return of the Rex tremendæ majestatis of the Last Judgement, then we also realize that it is truly a modicum, a short time. And with the theological Hope of the help of God, we can face this parenthesis, this modicum, with renewed vigor.

Dear faithful, we know that these are difficult days: the recent events, the death of Jorge Bergoglio, the convocation of the Conclave, the election of Pope Leo come at a time when we are worn out by decades of crisis, with the last few terrible years of usurpation, heresies, scandals, and the apostasy of almost the entire Catholic Hierarchy. Added to these events is the globalist coup, the increasingly evident hostility of world rulers towards those who are ruled, and the looming establishment of the tyranny of the New World Order with its diabolical agenda. We are all tired and worn out. Tired of fighting against blatant lies passed off as truth. Tired of having to justify the obvious, when the entire system propagates the absurd. Tired of having to defend ourselves from those who instead ought help us. Tired of having to protect ourselves from doctors who want to poison us, from judges who want to imprison honest people while freeing criminals, from teachers who teach errors, from priests and bishops who spread heresy and immorality. We are not made for this: it is not up to the flock to command the shepherds, the student to teach the teacher, the patient to give lessons to the doctor. This is the reason why authority exists: so that as a vicarious expression of the sole Authority of Jesus Christ, King and Pontiff, it may govern to bring about the Good, and not in order to destroy the institution within which it is exercised and to disperse the members.

Our weariness, our bitterness at seeing the opportunities that Providence offers us so often frustrated, the wear and tear of a nerve-wracking battle with a treacherous enemy without valid allies: all this is part of the time of trial. It is our cross, a cross that the Lord has wisely calibrated so that with His Grace we may be able to carry it to the end, an individual and collective cross that no earthly power will ever be able to change or erase. It is the cross that the Church must embrace, because it is the only hope – spes unica – to emerge victorious from this epochal battle: without the passio Ecclesiæ it is impossible for the Mystical Body to triumph with Her Divine Head. And neither peace, nor harmony, nor prosperity will ever be possible where human hopes are not based on the observance of the Holy Law of God and do not recognize the Universal Lordship of Jesus Christ.

It is not up to us – to any of us – to provide ordinary solutions in completely unique and extraordinary circumstances. We are required – and here the wisdom of the regula Fidei comes to our aid – not to change anything that the Lord has taught the Church and that the Church has faithfully transmitted to us. Continuing to believe what our fathers believed will not deprive us of eternal glory, just because we reject the novelties introduced by false shepherds and mercenaries. On the day of the particular Judgment at the moment of our death and on the day of the Universal Judgment at the end of time we will not be judged on the basis of Amoris Lætitia or Nostra Ætate, but on the basis of the Gospel.

Let us therefore live every moment of our life knowing that this is the time of trial; and that the more the battle rages, the more Our Lord will multiply the Graces He grants us to fight and conquer. And if it is true that the Lord is now physically in Heaven, it is equally true that He wanted to grant His Ministers the power to make Him still present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Every tabernacle, however abandoned and neglected by the foolishness of men, brings back to this valley of tears the glory of Heaven, the adoration of the Angels and Saints, the Real Presence of the incarnate God. It is true: the flame of the Paschal Candle may be extinguished, but the flame of the red sanctuary lamp that honors the Eucharistic King remains alive and burning. May the flame of Charity that burns in each of us also shine, so that our soul may be less unworthy of becoming the dwelling place of the Most Holy Trinity. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

29 May MMXXV
in Ascensione Domini

Archbishop Viganò: Prevost continues Bergoglio's path

Sun, 25 May 2025 08:57:49 +0000

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano
May 24, 2025

It is normal and humanly understandable that more than a decade of open persecution of Catholics by the one who presented himself as their Pope would lead many of us to desire a truce, hoping that Our Lord would give His Church - if not a new Pius X - at least another Benedict XVI.

But this legitimate desire - certainly animated by good feelings and love for the Church - cannot transform itself into a virtual reality in which, even against all evidence, everything must necessarily be read as a confirmation of what we would like, and not of what is really happening. We cannot build for ourselves a "virtual church" with a "virtual papacy" that we love and serve in a consoling but unreal fiction.

The confirmation of a notorious heretic to the Cathedra of Saint Gallen in Switzerland; the appointment of a nun as Secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, in line with the appointment of a Prefectess by Bergoglio; the repeated references to the heretical documents of his predecessor and to Vatican II; the declarations on ecumenism and synodality, and finally the acceptance of climate fraud; all place Robert Francis Prevost in evident and disturbing continuity with his predecessor, and it will certainly not be the stole and mozzetta that will change reality.

May looking at reality with supernatural eyes help us to recognize the deceptions of the Evil One and push us, today more than ever, to place all our hope in Christ the King and Pontiff, so that He may help and protect His Church. May He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life be our guide in a rebellious world doomed to perdition, lies, and death.

x.com/CarloMVigano/status/1926239129198530747

Viganò sues Vatican Bank, implicates Cardinal Parolin

Tue, 06 May 2025 16:55:48 +0000

Viganò sues Vatican Bank, implicates Cardinal Parolin
'The Civil Court of Rome will be asked for an international rogatory so that the competent Vatican Authorities order the preventive and precautionary seizure of the aforementioned assets.'

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò / YouTube

May 5, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò issued a press release saying he has sued the Vatican Bank for appropriating assets meant for charity and that Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin knows about the alleged impropriety.

“I gave a mandate to Prof. Attorney AUGUSTO SINAGRA with Legal Firm in Rome in Viale Gorizia n. 13, to file a lawsuit with the Civil Court of Rome against the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) of the Vatican, in the person of the previous Directors General and in the person of the current Director General, Dr. Gian Franco Mammì, along with a Prelate of the Roman Curia,” Vigano wrote in the press release issued Monday.

Summing up the alleged affair, Viganò said:

Quote:The lawsuit concerns an undue appropriation of very valuable assets deposited at the IOR that were intended to be used for works of charity.

The Civil Court of Rome will be asked for an international rogatory so that the competent Vatican Authorities order the preventive and precautionary seizure of the aforementioned assets. At the same time, all the expert opinions – in addition to those already acquired – necessary to assess the responsibility of the various people involved, and the quality of their conditions and their conduct will be requested.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, among the most favored papal appointees, has been fully aware of the story and all its implications for some time, also on the impetus of the significant endorsement given to him by the Freemason Prof. Giuliano Di Bernardo, former Grand Master of the Great East Lodge of Italy.

His Eminence is well informed about the facts and all the events that in his time, and even recently, saw him involved and questioned. I considered it my duty to proceed through the courts to request the return of said goods following a repeated denial by Cardinal Parolin to make reparation outside of court of the serious damage that has been caused to me.

The Cardinal will be – along with many others – also called as a witness to confirm what is already incontrovertibly proven from documents in my possession and also possessed by Cardinal Parolin himself.

This story is developing …

Archbishop Viganò: Homily on Holy Thursday

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 10:24:42 +0000

Archbishop Viganò: Priests must hold fast to tradition as the Church goes through this agony
Let us implore the Blessed Virgin, that we may truly be friends of Christ, doing as He commands. By staying awake and praying during the agony of His Church.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on Holy Thursday, 2025
exsurgedomine.it

Apr 17, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — The following was written and published in French by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on Holy Thursday. The following is an unofficial English translation.

NEC SENESCAT TEMPORE
Homily of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday

On Thursday of Holy Week, the Church honors with the utmost solemnity some of the most important mysteries of our religion. In ancient times, this blessed day began with the reconciliation of public sinners who had atoned for their sins during Lent. Vivo ego, dicit Dominus: nolo mortem peccatoris, sed ut magis convertatur, et vivat.

But for the sinner not to die, but rather to be converted and live, it is indispensable that the Sacrifice of the New and Eternal Covenant, the Holy Mass, be perpetuated in an unbloody manner; and for this eternal Sacrifice to be celebrated, it requires the Priesthood, and thus the Episcopate to transmit it in the line of Apostolic Succession; and with the Priesthood, the Oils and Chrism of the anointing of Priests and Kings, Prophets and Martyrs. In short, it is necessary that the Messiah – the Χριστός, the Lord’s Anointed – gloriously risen and ascended to Heaven after suffering and dying on the Cross, perpetuate His presence in Holy Church, His Mystical Body, until the day of His return at the end of time.

On this blessed day, we remember the Last Supper, the institution of the priesthood, the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament.

The evening liturgy takes us back to the Upper Room, where the Apostles received His spiritual testament from the Lord, before the agony of Gethsemane and the arrest by the Sanhedrin. And while the days before and after Maundy Thursday offer us the Gospels of the Passion and the outward signs of mourning, today the Church dresses in white, intones the Gloria and concentrates on contemplating these last hours that the Redeemer spends with His disciples.

Never as in this crucial phase in the history of the Church and of humanity can we feel and share the apprehension of the Apostles, their disorientation at seeing their feet washed by the Master, their awareness of an imminent destiny, the sleep that seized them during the Agony in the Garden of Olives, the fear that led them to flee, Peter’s triple denial in the Praetorium, the despair that led Judas to take his own life, the silent presence of John and the holy women on the ascent to Calvary and at the foot of the Cross.

In the space of a few hours, the ritual banquet of the Jewish Passover, anticipating the only Mass celebrated before the Sacrifice on Golgotha, gives way to the apparent triumph of the executioners, the arrest of the Lord, a trial conducted with fraud and false witnesses, His condemnation to death on the infamous scaffold reserved for slaves, the outrages of the crowd stirred up by the scribes and priests.

We find all this in the modest signs of the Liturgy, which ends in sadness, with the rite of the stripping of the altars accompanied by the monotonous singing of Psalm 21, and the replacement of the sound of the bells by the austere noise of the rattle.

We could say that the Savior’s earthly life – and by extension the whole of Salvation history – is locked up in this day when the Lord allows the Twelve, and us with them, to enjoy a brief flash of solemn consolation and hope before the terrible hours of Good Friday.

On the day when the Levites renew their priestly promises and the bond of unity with the Bishop, we must ask ourselves to what model we wish to conform our Priesthood.

There are indeed many ways of understanding and living the priestly ministry, but only one conforms to the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not you who have chosen me, but I who have chosen you (Jn 15:16), said the Divine Master.

And if He has chosen us, if He has chosen you, it is so that you may be as He wants you to be, and so that you may go and bear fruit and that your fruit may remain (ibid.). That you may go, not that you may remain. That you may grow in holiness, not wallow in mediocrity, or worse, sink into sin. That you may bear fruit. You are not trade unionists, propagandists, leaders of a humanitarian organization or members of a philanthropic circle.

You are not called to reassure souls, nor to please them, but to awaken them from their torpor, to warn them, to prod them opportune, importunate. You are no longer of the world, but in the world: the black robe you wear is a sign of separation and renunciation, an example for the good and a warning for sinners. You are not presidents of an assembly, but ministers of Christ, dispensers of the Mysteries of God (1Co 4, 1). You are not actors on a stage, nor lecturers on a podium: you are priests, in whose gestures and words those who listen to you must see and hear Our Lord, the High Priest, stretching out his arms on the Cross to offer himself to the Father. The Church, the Priesthood, the Mass, the Sacraments, the Liturgy and the Gospel are not your property, nor a draft that God leaves you free to alter, distort or “reread” as you please.

So honor Holy Tradition, not as the cold, extinguished ashes of a past now buried, but as a living flame that should set everything ablaze with supernatural Charity, starting with yourselves. For if you are not the salt of the earth and the leaven of the mass, you will end up being thrown to the ground and trampled underfoot (Mt 5:13) by those you think you are pleasing.

Make the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the main reason for your life and your days, for on it depends the salvation of the Church, the world and your own. Complete in your body what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings, as the Apostle says (Col 1:24), for the good of His Body, which is the Church. Resistite fortes in fide (1 Pet 5:9), as St. Peter exhorts us. Beware lest your hearts be deceived and you turn aside, serving foreign gods or bowing down to them (Dt 11:16). Heed the advice of the Commonitorium of Saint-Vincent de Lérins: In ipsa item Catholica Ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.

This is the most certain rule of Faith, before an apostate Hierarchy that eclipses the true Church of Christ, [...]. Learn to obey God rather than men, remembering that the destiny of the priest or bishop is indissolubly linked to that of his Lord:

Quote:If the world hates you, know that it hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, the world would love what belongs to it. But because you are not of the world, and I chose you out of the world, the world hates you because of this. Remember what I said to you: The servant is not greater than the master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know him who sent me (Jn 15:18-21).

The Church is preparing to face the passio Ecclesiae, the Mystical Body of Christ, which, like its Head, must not only face torment in the individual members of the Martyrs, as has happened throughout history, but also in the whole body, brought before a new Sanhedrin that hates the Church as it hates Christ. And in these blessed hours, we are given the opportunity to celebrate the Priesthood that has been conferred upon us: some in the fullness of the Episcopate, others in participation in the various degrees of the Order you have received. Gathered around the Calvary of the altar, let us repeat the words and gestures that the Lord taught the Apostles, faithful to the mandate received: Hæc quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis (1Co 11, 25). Each of us can say with Saint Augustine: Admiramini, gaudete, Christus facti sumus (Tract. XXI). We have become Christ: the faithful, in Baptism; you, Sacred Ministers, in the ordained ministerial Priesthood; we, Bishops, in the fullness of the Priesthood and in the Apostolic Succession.

We repeat what we have been taught and ordered to do. Let us pass on intact – with God’s help and the assistance of the Holy Spirit – what we have received: Tradidi quod et accepi (1 Cor 1:3). For we have nothing of ourselves to pass on, except all that Christ has given us: Dominus pars hereditatis meæ et calicis mei: tu es qui restitues hereditatem meam mihi (Ps 15:5), the Lord is my inheritance and my cup: it is You who brings me back into possession of the inheritance I had so abruptly lost. And if we are children, we are also heirs: heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ, if we truly share in his sufferings so as to share in his glory (Rom 8:17). Our being heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ thus involves assimilating the royal priesthood of Our Lord: a priesthood that consists in offering the divine Victim in the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass; but also in offering ourselves, mystically, as victims in union with the Immaculate Lamb; and in being, like Christ, the cornerstone, the mystical altar on which the rite is celebrated. Only in this way, dear brothers, can we be worthy of hearing the Master repeat the consoling words he spoke to the Apostles in the Upper Room:

This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you may go and bear fruit, that your fruit may abide, and that the Father may grant you whatever you ask of him in my name (Jn 15:12-16).

Let us implore the Blessed Virgin, the Regina Crucis, Mother of the High Priest, Mother of the Divine Victim, Tabernacle of the Most High, that we may truly be friends of Christ, doing as He commands. By staying awake and praying during the agony of His Church; by remaining faithful to Him when new Judases hand Him over to the Sanhedrin; by not fleeing in fear, by not denying Him as Peter did. By loving one another as He loved us: Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor; by knowing how to give life as He gave it for us. By sharing in His sufferings, so as to share in His glory. And may it be so.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

17 April 2025

Feria V in Cœna Domini

Archbishop Viganò warns that McCarrick’s followers ‘remain in power’

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 13:55:47 +0000

Archbishop Viganò warns that McCarrick’s followers ‘remain in power’
'They still remain in power, in America & in the Vatican, those whom McCarrick shamelessly called 'my nephews,'' Archbishop Viganò wrote.

Apr 7, 2025
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Reacting to the death of Theodore McCarrick, former U.S. papal nuncio and whistleblower Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has warned about the remaining influence the ex-cardinal still has on those in high-ranking positions, particularly in America.

The April 3 death of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick was revealed to the world on Friday, as the highly influential American died at the age of 94.

He was expelled from the College of Cardinals in 2018, and was laicized in 2019, becoming the most senior cleric in history to be laicized for sexual misconduct.

Though numerous journalists and clergy have attested to knowledge of McCarrick’s homosexual predation being widespread even in the 1980s, public testimony against him had to wait until 2018.

Archbishop Viganò emerged as a key figure in the ensuing McCarrick scandal, after he famously accused Pope Francis of knowing about McCarrick’s serial predation, about the restrictions imposed on McCarrick by Benedict XVI, and of deliberately repealing such restrictions.

Viganò’s 2018 testimony took the Church and much of the world by storm, with the 11-page text naming numerous prominent prelates and accusing Francis of making McCarrick “his trusted counselor.”

In a statement issued to this correspondent following McCarrick’s death, Viganò opined on what the death of the ex-cardinal portends for the Church:

Quote:The death of Theodore McCarrick, whose horrendous crimes & perversions I have denounced since 2006 & whom I have also publicly called to repentance & conversion, leaves behind dozens, hundreds of victims to whom neither the canonical nor civil courts have ever accorded justice.

Indeed, though McCarrick was laicized by the Vatican, he had never been found guilty in courts in the civil sphere, despite cases brought against him. Court cases brought against him in his final years of life ended up being dropped after the court decided that the ex-cardinal was not fit to stand trial in August 2023 due to his claim of having dementia.

Viganò also pointed to the “protégés” of McCarrick who remain in situ in a number of high-ranking offices, including current Washington, D.C. Cardinal Archbishop Robert McElroy:

Quote:They still remain in power, in America & in the Vatican, those whom McCarrick shamelessly called ‘my nephews,’ promoted to the episcopate & cardinalate, as corrupt & blackmailable as himself.

He remains unpunished on the Throne of Peter the usurper of the Papacy, who owes his election to McCarrick. Remains rampant the plague of sodomy, the main cause of moral decay & corruption in the ecclesiastical Hierarchy.

In his 2018 testimony, Viganò said that McCarrick helped Francis in key appointments in the United States, including that of Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, whom Pope Francis previously tasked with organizing a Vatican summit on clerical sexual abuse.

Viganò also attested that McElroy was aware of McCarrick’s abuses, and that Viganò was instructed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin to keep the San Diego episcopate open for McElroy. He, said the former nuncio, was just one of many prelates who owed their rise to McCarrick.

Public pressure on the Vatican following the breakout of the McCarrick scandal eventually led to the publishing of the much anticipated “McCarrick report” in the fall of 2020. Though containing certain detailed aspects of the ex-cardinal’s life, the report was criticized by lay Catholics for what it lacked, particularly given that it sought to excuse Pope Francis from any culpability and lay all blame on Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The McCarrick report also sought to blame Archbishop Viganò for part of the affair. Viganò responded by describing the report as presenting “unfounded accusations” against him.

The former U.S. Nuncio was declared guilty of “schism” and automatically excommunicated by the Vatican last July – a verdict he has consistently rejected.

McCarrick’s predatory homosexual abuse and the public scandal has also highlighted the uncomfortable aspect of how many in the hierarchy knew of his actions but refused to take action. Indeed, it has become the pin-up example for ecclesial cover-up.

Veteran journalist and author Rod Dreher recalled the widespread network of determined silence amongst clerics and journalists when it came to the subject of McCarrick’s abuse.

“Uncle Ted’s influence continues beyond the grave. The past isn’t even past,” he commented:

Quote:If the mission of the Church depends on rolling over innocent victims of its perverted clergy, marginalizing them, attacking their families, well, too bad for the victims. The guilt here lies primarily with the hierarchy. But it also lies with lower clergy (people like [Father Benedict] Groeschel) and Catholic laity, and non-Catholics too, who knew what was happening, or should have known, but instead preferred to protect their own peace of mind.

Many of McCarrick’s protégés and friends are indeed at work today, including influential individuals like Cardinals McElroy and Farrell.

Though the former D.C. cardinal has died, the Church continues to live with the consequences of his actions, and senior figures at the Vatican must learn swiftly the lessons that the scandal has to teach.

Archbishop Viganò: Freemasonry seeks to ‘destroy everything’ through permanent revolution

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:59:06 +0000

Archbishop Viganò: Freemasonry seeks to ‘destroy everything’ through permanent revolution

The psychopandemic farce, the climate fraud, the Ukrainian crisis, and the threat of nuclear conflict are all part and parcel of the 'destroy everything' plan
that the globalist elite sets out to do in order to force society to accept its technocratic tyranny.

Mar 31, 2025
The following was written and published by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on X on March 28, 2025.

(LifeSiteNews) — For more than three centuries, Freemasonry has been waging an all-out war against the Catholic Church and Christian society. It has as its aim the subversion of the social and religious order – the divine κόσμος (order) – by means of Revolution, which is the principle of the infernal χάος (chaos).

This Revolution must be permanent, just like the crises and emergencies by which it pretentiously justifies its own destructive action are also never-ending. “Solve et coagula (dissolve and coagulate).”

No wonder [French President Emmanuel] Macron, World Economic Forum emissary, recently said: “It is more difficult to reinvent everything when not everything has been destroyed.”

The psychopandemic farce, the climate fraud, the Ukrainian crisis, and the threat of nuclear conflict are all part and parcel of the “destroy everything” plan that the globalist elite sets out to do in order to force society to accept its technocratic tyranny.

Archbishop Viganò: Homily for the Annunciation to Mary Most Holy

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:09:23 +0000

Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò
Ecce ancilla Domini
Homily for the Annunciation to Mary Most Holy

Et verbum caro factum est,
et habitavit in nobis.

Jn 1:14

On the twenty-fifth of March, we celebrate the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and along with it the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity in the womb of the Virgin. The Word became flesh and came to dwell among us: these simple words contain within themselves that ineffable Mystery, thanks to which the Redemption was initiated for us. Many Christian nations, such as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany or the Republic of Pisa, Luxembourg, Dauphiné, Savoy, the Kingdom of Navarre, and Hungary calculated the beginning of the civil year not on the first of January, as is the custom today, but on the twenty-fifth of March, in what historians call the “Style of the Incarnation”, which brought the Christian New Year forward to coincide with the spring equinox.

This date therefore marks a historical event, reported in the Holy Gospels, which nine months later would lead the Virgin Mary, traveling with Saint Joseph to Bethlehem for the census ordered by Emperor Caesar Augustus, to find refuge in a stable and give birth to Emmanuel, God with us.

In the National Museum of Capodimonte, in Naples, we can admire a painting by Pietro Novelli (1603-1647), from Palermo, in which the Holy Trinity is depicted in the foreground, sending the Archangel to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Eternal Father offers Gabriel a lily, so that he may bring that symbol of purity to the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, intact in her Virginity before, during, and after giving birth. This splendid painting offers us the contemplation of the Incarnation from a different perspective, which is almost unique in Christian iconography. Usually, the artist represents the Annunciation by showing the scene of the Archangel bursting into the house of Our Lady, depicted while she is kneeling in prayer. In medieval paintings, the words Ave gratia plena come from Gabriel’s mouth, and the words Ecce ancilla Domini from Mary’s. Here, however, we see the chronologically preceding scene in which, almost with human dynamics, the Most August Trinity summons its Divine Messenger, giving him instructions. And the Virgin is small and distant, almost unaware of what awaits her shortly thereafter.

The Feast of the Annunciation always falls during the season of Lent, signifying that God works the greatest miracles when man recognizes himself in his real condition of misery, in his nothingness. And the more we are aware of depending totally on God – not only on a supernatural level but also on a natural – the more He deigns to fill us with His Grace and His gifts. Ecce ancilla Domini: the holiest of creatures, preserved from every stain of sin by a very special Divine Privilege, proclaims herself to be a servant, and becomes Lady, Queen, and Mother of God precisely because Her humility – and along with it the awareness of the need to travel with Christ along the Royal Way of the Cross – is the necessary pre-condition for the Almighty to accomplish great things in Her. Quia respexit humilitatem ancillæ suæ: ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes. Conversely, in pride the creature rises to compete with the Creator, arrogantly usurps from Him that glory which is reflected to the humble by grace, and claims to have rights – a blasphemous dignitas infinita – that it cannot claim and which merits it not only being repelled into its nothingness, but being sunk even lower. Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui, deposuit poteres de sede, et exaltavit humiles.

And as we contemplate the humility of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the destiny of glory and honor that the Holy Trinity has established for Her, we cannot fail to contemplate the humility of the Eternal Word, who descends from the infinite glory of Heaven in order to Incarnate Himself in the womb of the Virgin Mary, in obedience to the Father, to expiate on behalf of humanity for sins that are not His, to give His life for us miserable sinners, to restore the divine order that out of pride we have dared to violate. This concept is made explicit in some representations of the Annunciation, in which a ray coming from heaven shows the Holy Spirit descending upon the Virgin, followed by a Baby Jesus holding the Cross.

In Pietro Novelli’s painting we do not find the Virgin set aside, nor do we see Her neglected or diminished in Her Providential cooperation in the work of Redemption; on the contrary, we see the humility of the Word emphasized, who obediently accepts becoming flesh, in order to become the expiatory victim for our sins, and to become food: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink (Jn 6:54-55). That Most Holy Body was formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother, so that that Sacred Flesh could be torn in the sufferings of the Passion and that Precious Blood could flow from the Wounds and Side of Christ as the perfect cleansing of our sins. In this mystery we recognize the Compassion and Co-Redemption of the Mother of God – Regina Crucis – not only in union with the Redemption of Her Son, but even in having given to God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, that human body which made Him True Man and True God; which in the theandric union makes Our Lord Jesus Christ the only King and Lord by Divine Right, both by royal lineage and by conquest. And which, in the magnificence proper to the Holy Trinity, makes Mary Our Lady and Our Queen: Daughter of the Father, Bride of the Paraclete, and Mother of the Word.

This Regality of Christ and Mary finds its natural place in this time of Lent, because there can be no Glory of the Resurrection without first passing by way of Golgotha. If Our Lord and His Most Holy Mother have chosen to give us this wonderful example, we cannot help but take it as a model and prepare ourselves, with the help of Grace, to accept the Crosses that Providence assigns to us as a pre-condition for our eternal reward. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

25 March MMXXV
In Annuntiatione Beatæ Mariæ Virginis

Archbishop Viganò: Homily on Ash Wednesday

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 22:27:52 +0000

Parce, Domine
Homily on Ash Wednesday

Flectamus iram vindicem,
ploremus ante Judicem;
clamemus ore supplici,
dicamus omnes cernui:
Parce, Domine;
parce populo tuo:
ne in æternum irascaris nobis.

The Divine Liturgy accompanies us through the solar year as in a mirror, in which we see the history of the Redemption summarized and represented. The time of Advent takes us back to the expectation of the Messiah in the ancient Law; the time of Christmas celebrates His Most Holy Incarnation; Holy Lent and Passiontide take us back to the times that preceded the Sacrifice of the Cross; the time of Easter celebrates the Resurrection and the Ascension of the Lord into heaven; the time of Pentecost retraces the earthly life of the Savior, His miracles, and His teachings; and at the end of the liturgical cycle – just as at its beginning – we are projected to the End Times, to the Universal Judgment, to the reward or condemnation of each and every person. In a certain way the seasons of the year themselves accompany this sacred summary of Salvation History, so that during the rigors of winter we understand the pains of the Child King born in a manger, and then as nature awakens during springtime we are able to see the homage of Creation to the Lord who rises again and triumphs over death.

Today, on Ash Wednesday, we enter into a time of penance and purification to prepare ourselves in body and spirit for this Triumph of Our Lord: a real, historical triumph, witnessed by those who were its contemporaries, and celebrated by Christians of every age and place. To accompany us in this purification, the Holy Liturgy shows us what our fathers did in the Old Testament and points out to us the need to be ready in turn to face the great persecution of the End Times. Because one cannot fight without preparation, nor line up for a race without training for it.

In the Old Testament, the priests invoke mercy for the people: Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo! Spare your people, O Lord. In the New Testament, it is Christ himself, raised on the wood of the Cross, who intercedes for us: Forgive them, O Father! And together with Him, the Most Holy Virgin, all the Saints, and the souls in Purgatory also intercede before the throne of the Divine Majesty. We ourselves, members of the Communion of Saints, offer our sacrifices to atone for our sins and those of our brothers and sisters. We pay a debt contracted with the Infernal Usurer: not with his false money, but with the purest gold of the Passion of Christ. That debt that each of us, in Adam, took on against the will of God and despite having received from Him true wealth, the most inestimable treasure.

This Holy Lent, which we begin today by sprinkling ashes on our heads and fasting, occurs at a time of great social, political, and ecclesial upheavals. With each passing day new truths are coming to light, showing us an apostate society, a corrupt and perverted political class, and a sold-out and treacherous ecclesiastical hierarchy. Those whom we believed were taking care of the common good are now revealed as our enemies and the enemies of God. Those whom we thought should defend the Truth and proclaim the Gospel of Christ are now revealed as the followers of error and lies. And the authority that Our Lord, King and High Priest, has granted to our rulers – both civil and religious – has been used for the very opposite purpose of that for which He established it.

In the face of this global rebellion, and especially in the face of the betrayal of those who hold authority, we must return with greater conviction to clothing our souls in ashes and sackcloth, to prostrating ourselves before the Lord and repeating the cry of our fathers: Flectamus iram vindicem, ploremus ante Judicem; clamemus ore supplici, dicamus omnes cernui: Parce, Domine; parce populo tuo: ne in æternum irascaris nobis. Let us appease the vengeful wrath, let us weep before the Judge; let us call upon Him with a supplicating voice, let us prostrate ourselves and say all together: Forgive, Lord, forgive Your people, and do not remain forever angry with us.

However, precisely because of the enormity of our sins and the horror of the public sins of nations and of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, our penance must be accompanied – and preceded, I would say – by the proclamation of the Truth against lies. Because the Truth is of God; indeed, the Truth is God; and lies are the cursed mark of Satan.

Let all the veils and artifices that seek to conceal sin and vice, to deny it, to give it the appearance of good and virtue, come crashing down. Let all the masks that hide heinous crimes and evildoing in a network of shameful complicities among lost souls – crimes against God and against the little ones, first of all – all fall off. Let the fictions of a rebellious world, the lies of a perverted authority, of an infernal system that denies, offends, and fights against Christ and His children all crumble. Let the lies and deceptions of a Hierarchy and a Papacy held hostage by the enemies of Christ who are enslaved to Satan all be exposed. Let the arguments and excuses that we give all too often to justify our laziness, our spiritual inertia, and our inability to take sides and remain under the banner of our Divine King all come tumbling down. Let all the pretexts that we know how to find in order to postpone our conversion and our progress in holiness all fall down.

This is the hour of darkness, probably. But it is a darkness that is destined to be pierced by the Light of Christ, before which everything will appear as it truly is, and not as we would like it to be, not as would be more convenient to indulge our laziness.

And the first truth to proclaim, to shout from the rooftops, is that we are sinners, that there is a certain death, an irrevocable judgment, a hell to punish the wicked, and a paradise to reward the good. And that this ultimate and indefectible truth is part of our very being, is inscribed in our heart as a Law of nature, is revealed in the Scriptures, and delivered by Our Lord to His Church so that She may faithfully preach it to all peoples.

Let us proclaim this truth without fear of contradiction, remembering the words of the Book of Ecclesiasticus: Memorare novissima tua, et in æternum non peccabis (Sir 7:40), Consider what awaits you, and you will never sin. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

5 March MMXXV
Feria IV Cinerum, in capite jejunii

Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter in Rome

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 14:21:55 +0000

Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò
Cathedra veritatis
Homily on the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter in Rome
Taken from here [Emphasis mine]

Deus, qui beato Petro Apostolo tuo,
collatis clavibus regni cælestis,
ligandi atque solvendi pontificium tradidisti:
concede; ut, intercessionis ejus auxilio,
a peccatorum nostrorum nexibus liberemur.

Praised be Jesus Christ.

Today the Church in Rome celebrates the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, with which the authority that Our Lord conferred on the Prince of the Apostles finds in the Chair its symbol and ecclesial expression. We find traces of this celebration since the third century, but it was in 1588, at the time of the Lutheran heresy, that Paul IV established that the feast of the Chair qua primum Romæ sedit Petrus would take place on January 18, in response to the denial of the presence of the Apostle in the City of Rome. The other feast for the Chair of the first Diocese founded by St. Peter, Antioch, is celebrated by the universal Church on February 22.

Let me point out this important aspect: just as the human body develops antibodies when disease arises, so that it can be defeated when it is infected; so too the ecclesial body defends itself from the contagion of error when it occurs, affirming with greater incisiveness those aspects of dogma threatened by heresy. For this reason, with great wisdom, the Church proclaimed Truths of the Faith at certain times and not before, since those Truths were hitherto believed by the faithful in a less explicit and articulated form and it was not yet necessary to specify them. The sacred Canons of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea respond to the Arian denial of the divine nature of Our Lord, and are echoed by the splendid compositions of the ancient liturgy; the denial of the sacrificial value of the Mass, transubstantiation, suffrages, and indulgences are answered by the sacred Canons of the Council of Trent, and along with them also the sublime texts of the Liturgy. Today’s feast responds to the anti-papal denial of the foundation of the Diocese of Rome by the Apostle Peter, a feast that was desired by Paul IV precisely in order to reiterate the historical truth contested by Protestants and to strengthen the doctrine that derives from it.

The heretics and their neo-modernist followers, who have infested the Church of Christ for the past sixty years, act in the opposite way. And where they do not brazenly deny the Catholic Magisterium, they attempt to weaken it by being silent about it, omitting it, and formulating it in such a way as to make it equivocal and therefore acceptable even by those who deny it. This is exactly how the heresiarchs of the past also acted; this is how the innovators acted at Vatican II; and this is how those who, in order not to be accused of formal heresy, seek to cancel those “immune defenses” with which the Church had endowed herself, so as to make the faith fall into error and infect those defenses with the plague of heresy. Almost everything that the Mystical Body had wisely developed over the centuries – and particularly during the second millennium of the Christian era – growing harmoniously like a child who becomes an adult and strengthens himself in body and spirit, has now been willfully obscured and censured, with the deceptive excuse of returning to the primordial simplicity of Christian antiquity, and with the unspeakable purpose of adulterating the Catholic Faith in order to please the enemies of the Church. If you take the Montinian Missal, you will not find explicit heresies in it; but if you compare it with the traditional Missal, you will find that the omission of so many prayers composed in defense of revealed Truth was more than enough to make the Reformed Mass acceptable even to Lutherans, as they themselves admitted after the promulgation of that fatal and equivocal rite. To confirm this, even the feasts of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome and Antioch have been combined into one, in the name of that cancel culture that the modernist sect adopted in the ecclesiastical sphere well before the woke Left appropriated it in the civil sphere.

Today we celebrate the glories of the Papacy, symbolized by the Cathedra Apostolica that the genius of Bernini artistically composed on the altar of the apse of the Vatican Basilica, which is dominated by the alabaster window depicting the Holy Spirit and guarded by four Doctors of the Church: Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose for the Latin Church, Saint Athanasius and Saint John Chrysostom for the Greek Church. In the original project, which has remained intact through the centuries, the Chair was located above an altar, which the devastating fury of the innovators did not spare, moving it between the apse and the baldacchino of the Confession. Yet it is precisely in the architectural unity of altar and chair – which today has been deliberately erased – that we find the foundation of the doctrine of the Primacy of Peter, which is founded on Christ, He who is the lapis angularis, just as the altar of sacrifice, which is also a symbol of Christ, is made of stone.

We celebrate the Papacy in a historical phase of grave crisis and apostasy, which has risen even to the level of the Throne on which Peter first sat. And while our hearts are broken in contemplating the ruins caused by the devastation of the innovators to the detriment of so many souls and the glory of the divine Majesty; while we implore from Heaven a light that will allow us to understand how to combine Our Lord’s promise Non prævalebunt with the steady stream of heresies and scandals spread by the one whom Providence has inflicted on us at the head of the ecclesial body as punishment for the sins committed by the Hierarchy in these decades; while we see the division between those who deluded themselves that they still had a Pope segregated in the Monastery and the schism in the Dioceses of Northern Europe with their wicked synodal journey strongly desired by Bergoglio, we remember the prophecy of Leo XIII of happy memory, who wanted to insert in the prayer of the Exorcism against Satan and the apostate angels those terrible words that at the time must have sounded almost scandalous, but that today we understand in their supernatural sense:

Ecclesiam, Agni immaculati sponsam, faverrimi hostes repleverunt amaritudinibus, inebriarunt absinthio; Ad omnia desiderabilia ejus impias miserunt manus. Ubi sedes beatissimi Petri et Cathedra veritatis ad lucem gentium constituta est, ibi thronum posuerunt abominationis et impietatis suæ; ut percusso Pastor, et gregem disperse valeant.

Terrible enemies have filled the Church, bride of the immaculate Lamb, with bitterness, they have poisoned her with absinthe; they have laid their wicked hands on all desirable things. There where the See of Blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth was established to enlighten the nations, there they have placed the throne of their abomination and impiety, so that by striking the Shepherd they might also scatter the flock. These are not randomly written words: they were written after Leo XIII, at the end of Mass, had a vision in which the Lord granted Satan a period of time of about a hundred years to test the men of the Church. They echo the message of the Blessed Virgin at La Salette, fifty years earlier: “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist,” and precede by little more than a decade that third part of the Secret of Fatima in which, in all likelihood, Our Lady predicted the apostasy of the Hierarchy with the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical reform.

Every believer down the centuries has been able to look to Rome as a beacon of truth. No Pope, not even the most controversial popes in history like Alexander VI, ever dared to usurp his sacred Apostolic Authority in order to demolish the Church, adulterate her Magisterium, corrupt her Morality, and trivialize her Liturgy. In the midst of the most shocking storms, the Chair of Peter has remained unshaken and, despite persecution, it has never failed in the mandate conferred on it by Christ: Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep (Jn 21:15-19). Today, and for ten years now, feeding the lambs and sheep of the Lord’s flock is considered as a “solemn foolishness” by the one who now occupies the Throne of Peter, and the command that the Lord has given to the Apostles – Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Mt 28:19-20) – is seen as deplorable “proselytism,” as if the divine mission of the Holy Church were comparable to the heretical propaganda of sects. He said so on October 1, 2013; January 6, 2014; September 24, 2016; May 3, 2018; September 30, 2018; June 6, 2019; December 20, 2019; April 25, 2020, and again just a week ago on January 11, 2023. And here collapses the last, gasping vestige of what was Vatican II, which made “mission” [missionarietà] its watchword without understanding that in order to proclaim Christ to a paganized world it is necessary first of all to believe in the supernatural Truths that He taught the Apostles and that the Church has the duty to guard faithfully. Watering down Catholic doctrine, silencing it, and betraying it in order to please the mentality of the age is not the work of Faith, because this virtue is based on God who is the Supreme Truth; it is not a work of Hope, because one cannot hope for the salvation or help of a God whose revealing authority and saving love one rejects; it is not a work of Charity, because one cannot love Him whose very essence is denied. [We have seen this 'watering down Catholic doctrine' and 'betraying it in order to please the mentality of the age' since Pope John XXIII, in each and every Conciliar pope has embraced these mantras. This is not unique to Francis. - The Catacombs]

What is the vulnus that has struck the ecclesial body, making possible this apostasy of the leaders of the Hierarchy, to the point of causing scandal not only in Catholics, but also in the people of the world? It is the abuse of authority. It is believing that the power connected with authority can be exercised for the very opposite purpose of that purpose which legitimizes authority itself. It is taking God’s place, usurping His supreme power to decide what is right and what is not, deciding what can still be said to people and what is to be considered old-fashioned or outdated in the name of progress and evolution. It is to use the power of the Holy Keys to loose what ought to be bound and bind what ought to be loosed. It is not to understand that authority belongs to God and to no one else, and that both the rulers of nations and the prelates of the Church are all hierarchically subjected to Christ the King and High Priest. In short, it is separating the Chair from the altar, the authority of the Vicar and the Regent from that of the One who makes that authority sacred, ratified from above, because He possesses its fullness and is its divine origin.

Among the titles of the Roman Pontiff, there recurs, along with Christi Vicarius, also that of Servus servorum Dei. If the first has been disdainfully rejected by Bergoglio, his choice to retain the second sounds like a provocation, as his words and his works demonstrate. The day will come when the prelates of the Church will be asked to clarify what intrigues and conspiracies may have led to the Throne one who acts as the servant of Satan’s servants, and why they have fearfully assisted his excesses or made themselves accomplices of this proud heretical tyrant. Let those tremble who know and yet are silent out of false sense of prudence: by their silence they do not protect the honor of the Holy Church, nor do they preserve the simple from scandal. On the contrary, they plunge the Bride of the Lamb into ignominy and humiliation, and drive the faithful away from the Ark of Salvation at the very moment of the Flood.

Let us pray that the Lord will deign to grant us a holy Pope and holy rulers. Let us implore Him to put an end to this long period of trial, thanks to which – like every event permitted by God – we are now understanding how fundamental it is instaurare omnia in Christo, to recapitulate everything in Christ; how hellish – literally – is the world that rejects the Lordship of Christ, and how much more infernal is a religion that strips itself with contempt of its royal garments – robes dyed with the Blood of the Lamb on the Cross – to become the servant of the powerful, of the New World Order, of the globalist sect. Tempora bona veniant. Pax Christi veniat. Regnum Christi veniat.

And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the Feast of the Epiphany

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 16:52:03 +0000

Surge et illuminare
Homily on the Epiphany
6 Gennaio 2025
Taken from here.

Surge et illuminare, Jerusalem,
quia venit lumen tuum,
et gloria Domini super te orta est.

Rise and shine, Jerusalem:
because your light has come
and the glory of the Lord has shone upon you. — Is 60:1

This great feast of the Epiphany, which along with Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost is called this most holy day in the Canon of the Mass, completes the feast of the Nativity of the Lord.

If in the holy night we adored Emmanuel with the angels and with the shepherds, today in the Child King we adore the dominator Dominus, at whose feet all peoples are called from every end of the earth. Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terræ: omnes gentes servient ei, says the Scripture: “All the kings of the earth shall worship Him, and all peoples shall serve Him.” We have sung it in the Introit: Ecce, advenit dominator Dominus; et regnum in manu ejus, et potestas, et imperium. “Behold, the Lord who dominates comes: in His hand the kingdom, and kingly power and authority.”

This is not merely a sentiment, a pious wish destined to be fulfilled only in part or to be shattered by the harsh reality of a rebellious world; it is instead a very certain affirmation, founded on the ontological necessity of Christ’s triumph, which no one can ever oppose and which no one can ever prevent.

But while we are focused on the adoration of the Magi, who pay their tribute of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the King of kings after the poor homage of the shepherds, we must not forget that the Lord Himself, with His Incarnation, came to this earth to offer to the Most Holy Trinity, and to the Eternal Father, the tribute of souls snatched from the dominion of Satan and conquered in His Passion and death on the Cross.

The Magi offer gold to the Kingship of Christ, frankincense to His Divinity, and myrrh to Christ the sacrificial victim. They are therefore a figure of Our Lord, who offers all of us to the Eternal Father, and along with us all those whom providence has destined for the glory of heaven, through the offering of Christ the victim, raised on the altar of Calvary by Christ the Priest, who as King represents the humanity that belongs to Him by divine right, both of lineage and of conquest, and who as God is able to redeem by making reparation for our infinite sins and the infinite offense caused to God.

But while we are focused on the adoration of the Magi, who pay their tribute of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the King of kings after the poor homage of the shepherds, we must not forget that the Lord himself, with His Incarnation, came to this earth to offer to the Most Holy Trinity, and to the Eternal Father, the tribute of souls snatched from the dominion of Satan and conquered in His Passion and Death on the Cross. The Magi offer gold to the Kingship of Christ, frankincense to His Divinity, and myrrh to Christ the Sacrificial Victim. They are therefore a figure of Our Lord, who offers all of us to the eternal Father, and along with us all those whom Providence has destined for the glory of Heaven, through the offering of Christ the Victim, raised on the altar of Calvary by Christ the Priest, who as King represents the humanity that belongs to Him by divine right, both of lineage and of conquest, and who as God is able to redeem by making reparation for our infinite sins and the infinite offense caused to God. The Secreta of today’s Mass confirms this:

Ecclesiæ tuæ, quæsumus, Domine, dona propitius intuere: quibus non jam aurum, thus, et myrrha profertur: sed quod eisdem muneribus declaratur, immolatur, et sumitur, Jesus Christus Filius tuus Dominus noster:
Look with kindness, we bessech you, O Lord, upon the offerings of your Church, with which gold, frankincense, and myrrh is no longer offered, but rather the very One who through them is represented, offered, and received: Jesus Christ your Son and our Lord.

In the Magi – like in the three Angels who visited Abraham – we can also see a figure of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity who are pleased to see their divine Will fulfilled in the Son: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Mt 3:17). What is signified by the treasures revealed by the Magi in the silence of Bethlehem – the divinity of that Child – is proclaimed by his Heavenly Father at the moment of his Baptism in the Jordan, which we also celebrate today together with the miracle of the water turned into wine at the wedding feast at Cana.

The solemnity of the divine manifestation of the Savior – this is the meaning of the word epiphany used in the Roman Church and of the word theophany of the Eastern Church – places us before the Divine Kingship of Christ under two aspects: His first coming and His second coming. The first coming was accomplished in poverty, in silence, in humble obedience to His Parents for thirty years, in preaching for three years, in facing the torments of His Passion, the ignominy of the Cross, His Death, and His Deposition in the tomb; and then in the Resurrection – carried out far from everyone’s gaze, in the silence of the dawn of a Sunday nineteen hundred and ninety-two years ago, and concluded with the Ascension into Heaven and that promise of the Angel: Men of Galilee, why are you looking at heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from among you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven (Acts 1:11).

The second coming of the Lord will take place in glory: et iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos, we proclaim in the Creed. And it will again be that Divine King who closes the flow of time and history in the Last Judgment, to end the phase of trial, et sæculum per ignem. Then what was announced in the passage from the Prophet Isaiah that we have just heard will be definitively fulfilled: Arise, O Jerusalem, and be clothed with light, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines upon you (Is 60:1). This Light, which came into the world two thousand and twenty-five years ago, will shine in the Mystical Body, of which Christ is the Divine Head, after these dark times of apostasy and after the Passio Ecclesiæ: For, behold, darkness covers the earth, thick fog envelops the nations; but the Lord shines upon you, his glory appears upon you. Just as in the disfigured and suffering Christ the glory that shone in the Resurrection was obscured, so in His Mystical Body, now disfigured, the glory that awaits Him is eclipsed.

The persecution foretold by the Scriptures will be the last battle that humanity will have to face, siding with God or against Him, and the fate of that epochal clash is already marked by Christ’s victory on the Cross: o mors ero mors tua; morsus tuus ero, inferne, says the prophet Hosea (Hos 13:14), taken up by the Apostle Paul. But before that persecution we will see the kings of the earth and the mighty of the nations ally themselves with the Antichrist and have the power to blaspheme his Name, and his tabernacle, and the inhabitants of heaven (Rev 13:6), that is, God, the Holy Church and the elects. And it was granted [to the Beast] to make war against the saints, and to conquer them. And it was given power over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation. And all those who dwell in the earth worshipped it, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, who was slain from the beginning of the world. He who has ears, let him hear (Rev 13:7-9). Christ is the Lamb who suffers and triumphs in those who believe in him: in Abel he is killed by his brother, in Noah he is mocked by his son, in Abraham he was a pilgrim, in Isaac he was offered, in Joseph he was sold, in Moses he was exposed and driven out, in the Prophets stoned and mutilated, in the Apostles tossed about by land and sea, and in the Martyrs so many times and in many ways killed.

Yet, this parenthesis of Satan’s apparent triumph is destined to end with the killing of the Antichrist by the Archangel St. Michael and with the head of the Serpent crushed by the Immaculate Virgin. The prophet Isaiah reassures us once again: The peoples will walk in your light, and kings in the splendor of your rising. Lift up your eyes around and see: all these are gathered, they are coming to you. Your sons come from afar, your daughters are carried in your arms. At that sight you will be radiant, your heart will throb and expand, because the riches of the sea will pour down on you, the goods of the peoples will come to you. A crowd of camels will invade you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah, all of them will come from Sheba, bringing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the glories of the Lord (Is 60:3-6). A little further on, the Prophet Isaiah addresses the Holy Church, the new Jerusalem: Your gates will always be open; they will not be closed day or night, so that the wealth of the nations and their kings in procession may enter into you. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve you will perish; those nations will be completely destroyed (Is 60:10-11). When we look with dismay at the political and economic upheavals of states, we must remember the doom of ruin foretold for nations that rebel against the Lord.

At the beginning and at the end of the liturgical year, Holy Church reminds us of the Lord’s second coming and exhorts us to be ready, as the Jews faithful to the prophecies of the Old Testament were ready for the first coming: You also must be ready, for the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect (Lk 12:40). And this warning should make all of us tremble, but especially those whom the Lord has constituted in authority, both in the Church and in civil society: the master of that servant will arrive on the day when he least expects it and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him rigorously by assigning him a place among the infidels (Lk 12:46).

The Virgin Mother, most august Queen and Lady, is present today at the act of adoration of the Magi to her Divine Son. Tomorrow she will attend, crowned with stars and seated on Her throne of glory on which she sits from her Assumption into heaven, the adoration of those who did not recognize Him at the first coming of Christ and of the pagan peoples who will be converted to Her Son. And just as the Father will place the enemies of Christ as a stool for His feet, so will Our Lord do with the Mater Ecclesiæ, humiliating the enemies of the Virgin His Mother and of the Church His Bride: The children of those who have oppressed you will come to you, humbling themselves; all those who have despised you will bow down to the soles of your feet and will call you the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel (Is 60:14). May the intercession of Mary Most Holy, Queen of the Cross, protect us in our moment of trial and grant us the grace of perseverance. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

January 6, 2025
In Epiphania Domini

Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the Octave of Most Holy Christmas

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 14:55:18 +0000

In nomine ejus
Homily on the Octave of Most Holy Christmas
Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò

The first day of January coincides with the Octave of Christmas, when the Liturgy is centered on the Circumcision of the Lord and the Divine Motherhood of Mary Most Holy, proclaimed by the Council of Ephesus in 431 as Deipara – in Greek Theotokos – or Mother of God. In ancient times, two Masses were celebrated on this day, one of the Octave and one in honor of the Virgin Mother. Later the memory of the Marian celebration remained in the postcommunio and in the station church at Santa Maria in Trastevere.

In the Incarnation, the Word of God became flesh, making fruitful the unblemished virginity of the Holy Mother of the Redeemer. The Word takes shape – Verbum caro factum est – generating Emmanuel in the womb of the Virgin, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And he will be called, as Scripture says in Isaiah’s prophecy, admirable counsellor, strong God, Prince of peace, Father of the coming age, Angel of the great counsel (Is 9:6). Even the Archangel Gabriel, in bringing the announcement to Mary, says to her: Behold, you will conceive and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great and called the Son of the Most High; the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end (Lk 1:31-33). With the Circumcision, His Name is imposed on Him: Jesus, God saves.

To name someone or something means to define the person or thing in its essence. And this is the prerogative of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Triune God who manifests Himself by revealing His Name. In the creative act, the name designates creation itself: Let there be light. And there was light (Gen 1:3). And he called the light day and the darkness night (Gen 1:5); he called the firmament heaven; he called the dry land the earth and the mass of the waters the sea (Gen 1:10). Having decreed that man should be in His image and likeness (Gen 1:26) and that he should rule the earth, He allows Adam to participate in some way in the creative act by allowing him to give a name to the animals: Then the Lord God formed out of the ground all kinds of wild animals and all the birds of the air and brought them to the man, to see what he would call them: whatever the man called each of the living beings, that was to be his name (Gen 2:19). The name expresses reality and defines it: this is why the Word is holy, and why the name of God is holy and terrible (Ps 111:10) – as the Psalm says – because it is the Word of Truth. This is why the sacraments have matter, intention and form, that is, the sacramental word: “I baptize you,” “I absolve you,” “I confirm you,” are all words that bring about what they say and signify.

In a few days we will celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus: so that at the name of Jesus every knee may bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth; and every tongue may proclaim – here too, the word proclaimed, spoken – that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:10-11). In the Name of Jesus the devil is cast out: because the Name makes present the one who bears it, and the Truth makes the lie manifest as the Light dispels darkness. Creator and creature are in some way united by the word: Ecce, venio, says Wisdom in the eternity of time. Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, replies the Seat of Wisdom, Mary Most Holy. And that blessed body that by obedience the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity assumes in the hypostatic union begins His journey towards the Passion from the cradle, facing the rigors of winter in a cave; and shortly thereafter, again out of obedience, the Holy Child will shed the first drops of His Precious Blood in the rite of Circumcision, in which the Passion is prefigured.

In this new civil year, which for two thousand and twenty-five years has been counted from the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I would like us to reflect on the importance of the word: the Word of God, in which the meaning of our eternal life is preserved; and the word with which we communicate and express ourselves, which preserves the meaning of our daily life.

The Revolution, the satanic matrix of this rebellious world hostile to the Incarnate Word, knows well that changing words also changes their meaning. This is why the lie of the ancient Serpent uses false and deceptive language. This is why the servants of the Evil One hide their deceptions behind words that are only apparently harmless. It is the Orwellian newspeak that renames the horrendous crime of abortion as reproductive health, mutilation as gender transition, vice and transgression as freedom, the destruction of Creation as green deal, the extermination of humanity as net zero, and ethnic replacement as inclusion.

And if up until a few decades ago Holy Mother Church knew how to oppose this subversion by repeating unchanged the eternal and true Word of God and using the language proper to Faith and Morals, today a corrupt Hierarchy shows its betrayal in the same way, manipulating language, thus annulling the word of God (Mk 7:12). It renames the destruction of the divine constitution of the Church and the manipulation of the Papacy as synodality, the renunciation of the need for evangelization and conversion as ecumenical dialogue, redefines the poor as the real presence, and the legitimization of sin as acceptance.

The Word of God is the word of Truth. It does not limit itself to echoing in eternity, but becomes flesh and food, immolates itself on the Cross so that the Word proclaims the glory of the Father, redeems us from Satan’s lie and preserves us on this earthly journey from the falsehood and deception of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Remaining faithful to the Word of God means remaining faithful to the Gospel, to doctrine, to Tradition, and to the Mass of all time in which the words, spoken in the sacred language of the Church, keep their meaning intact and communicate it unequivocally, as light shines in darkness. Remaining faithful to the Word of God, that is, to God himself, means knowing how to respond to the word with the word, as Mary Most Holy did when she welcomed the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel.

Let us therefore call things by their name: let us refer to virtue as virtue and vice as vice; mindful of the admonition of Sacred Scripture: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who change darkness into light and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter (Is 5:20). Let your speech, therefore, be Yes, yes, no, no: all the rest comes from the Evil One (Mt 5:37). And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

1 January 2025
Octava Nativitatis
In Circumcisione Domini