reflections, updates and homilies from Deacon Mike Talbot inspired by the following words from my ordination: Receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe and practice what you teach...
Showing posts with label Archbishop Carlo Vigano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Archbishop Carlo Vigano. Show all posts
A press release from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith declares the excommunication “latae sententiae” incurred by the former nuncio to the United States, who does not recognize the legitimacy of Pope Francis or of the Second Vatican Council.
Vatican News
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former apostolic nuncio to the United States of America, has incurred excommunication latae sententiae for having abandoned communion with the Bishop of Rome and the Catholic Church.
A press release issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith states: “On 4 July 2024, the Congress of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith met to conclude the extrajudicial penal process referred to in canon 1720 CIC against the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Viganò, titular Archbishop of Ulpiana, accused of the reserved delict of schism (canons 751 and 1364 CIC; art. 2 SST).”
The communiqué continues, “His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known.
“At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Viganò was found guilty of the reserved delict of schism.
Further, the press release notes, “The Dicastery declared the latae sententiae excommunication in accordance with canon 1364 § 1 CIC. The lifting of the censure in these cases is reserved to the Apostolic See.”
Finally, the statement says, “This decision was communicated to the Most Reverend Viganò on 5 July 2024.”
The case against Viganò
It was Archbishop Viganò himself who revealed the process against him, revealing the full text of the decree summoning him to Rome to answer the charges against him, and offering the opportunity to defend himself or appoint an advocate, and to appear in person or present a written defence. As he did not choose to avail himself of these opportunities within the specified time limit, he was assigned a public defender who undertook Viganò's defence according to the norms of law.
On several occasions in recent years, the former nuncio to the United States had declared that he did not recognize the legitimacy of Pope Francis or of the Second Vatican Council. Certain crimes in canon law incur an automatic (“latae sententiae”) penalty from the very fact of having committed the offence; for the delict of schism, the penalty is excommunication.
According to the Code of Canon Law (canon 1331, paragraph 1), an excommunicated person is prohibited from celebrating the Sacrifice of the Eucharist and the other sacraments; receiving the sacraments, administering sacramentals and celebrating the other ceremonies of liturgical worship, and from taking an active part in the celebrations listed above. Further, they are prohibited from exercising any ecclesiastical offices, duties, ministries, or functions; and from performing acts of governance.
The second paragraph of canon 1331 lists consequences that follow from the latae sententiae excommunication being formally declared.
Excommunication is considered a “medicinal” penalty that aims at inviting the offender to repentance. As such, there is always the hope that the subject of excommunication will return to communion.
Vigano announces on X he is being tried for schism
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, publishes a copy of a decree summoning him to appear before the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to answer charges of schism.
Vatican News
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former apostolic nuncio to the United States, has posted on his “X” account a communication from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith summoning him to Rome to face an “extrajudicial penal process” (also known as an “administrative process”) for the canonical crime of schism.
According to the social account, which reproduces a copy of a decree attributed to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Viganò was to appear Thursday afternoon (or appoint his own defense counsel) at 3:30 p.m. to “take notice of the accusations and evidence concerning the crime of schism of which he has been accused (public statements which result in a denial of the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church; denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis; a rupture of communion with him; and rejection of the Second Vatican Council).” The document warns that should he fail to appear, or to provide a written defense submitted by June 28, the archbishop “will be judged in his absence.”
In September 2018, Arcbhishop Viganò in September 2018 penned a clamorous letter concerning the case of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, in which he called for Pope Francis’ resignation. The McCarrick affair, which was fully clarified by the Holy See with the publication of a detailed report in November 2020 that comprehensively refutes the Archbishop, is not the subject of the document published in the X account. Rather, according to Archbishop Viganò himself, the former apostolic nuncio is accused of refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the current Pontiff and that of the last Council. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has not commented in any way on the announcement posted on social media.
In posting the decree, the social profile connected with Archbishop Viganò attributes the following to the former nuncio: “I consider the accusations against me an honor,” and calls the Second Vatican Council an "ideological, theological, moral, and liturgical cancer,” of which “the Synodal Church” is a “metastasis.”
Commenting on the affair, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said, “Archbishop Viganò has taken some attitudes and some actions for which he must answer.” The Cardinal was speaking on the sidelines of a conference at the Pontifical Urbanian University, explaining that the former nuncio will be given the opportunity to defend himself.
Reflecting on his previous experience of working with Archbishop Vigano, Cardinal Parolin told journalists, “I am very sorry because I always appreciated him as a great worker, very faithful to the Holy See, someone who was, in a certain sense, also an example. When he was apostolic nuncio he did good work.
“I don’t know what happened,” the Secretary of State concluded.
Yesterday, some hundreds of people invaded the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., clashing with police, smashing windows, and forcing members to evacuate both chambers of Congress. It points to an urgent need to examine the damage done to our national social life.
For the Church in the United States, the events highlight the difficult task of addressing polemical voices within the Catholic community, in order for the Church to bear better witness in our national life.
Credit: Chad Davis/CC BY 2.0
The attack on the Capitol was a unique and, for many, deeply upsetting spectacle to behold. Catholic bishops joined national leaders of all kinds to express their shock. Archbishop Jose Gomez, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, and Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington both issued statements condemning the lawlessness, and insisting on the need to recommit ourselves as a nation to adhering to common democratic values and mutual respect.
Los Angeles auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron called for a “national examination of conscience,” and after a year of widespread unrest, ever-deeping polarization, and a national conversation increasingly unmoored from the reality of facts, this seems an essential first step for national recovery.
The Catholic Church in the U.S. will certainly hope to play a role in leading that examination, and in witnessing to the love of neighbor which has become markedly absent from the national conversation. But, if the Church in this country is going to play a significant role in helping heal our civic society, it seems essential that it first conduct its own self-examination.
Cardinal Gregory, in his statement yesterday, said that “Those who resort to inflammatory rhetoric must accept some responsibility for inciting the increasing violence in our nation.” And indeed there seem to be several prominent Catholics who could shoulder some of this responsibility, both lay and clerical.
Fringe Catholic figures, like the YouTube polemicist Taylor Marshall, have cultivated an online audience of hundreds of thousands; while rejecting the legitimacy of the Church hierarchy and Vatican Council II, he has increasingly allied himself with the political conspiracy theorism and biblically apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding the “Stop the Steal” movement.
The former abortion worker-turned anti-abortion campaigner Abby Johnson, herself a public and prominent Catholic convert, has similarly used her pro-life work and credibility as a platform from which to both criticise the moral teaching authority of the Church and to champion the “Stop the Steal” campaign.
Fr. Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life and who was for a time a board member of the organization “Catholics for Trump,” has been increasingly outspoken in his support for election conspiracy theories and calls for direct action in response.
Yesterday, Pavone tweeted that “What is intolerable is that a fraudulent, invalid, and illegitimate president would be inaugurated on January 20.” This follows earlier statements from the priest that “Every single [Democrat] should be out of office. Immediately. This is not disagreement. It is war.”
And, of course, there remains the figure of former apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who, along with Marshall, appeared at the Jericho March rally in December.
On New Year’s Day, Vigano gave an interview with Steve Bannon in which he denounced the “infernal project” of “Bergoglio’s deep Church.”
At the same time, the archbishop told Americans, one assumes American Catholics in particular, that if they allow “the idea to spread among the masses that the electoral choice of the citizens – the first expression of democracy – can be manipulated and thwarted, it will be complicit in the fraud” of Trump’s defeat.
“If the United States misses this opportunity, now, it will be wiped out from history,” said Vigano in what many will have interpreted as a call to direct action.
Figures like Johnson, Marshall, Pavone, and Vigano have cultivated a growing audience among American Catholics by speaking with a directness and force which the hierarchy tends to avoid when confronted with the reality of hyperpartisan rancor within the national Catholic community. And they have done so by speaking against the Church itself, and, increasingly, in favor of a polemical politics which repurposes the Church’s moral priorities in support of partisan ends.
For years, the U.S. bishops have issued a document ahead of elections entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. It is a practical and measured handbook to help Catholics weigh policy priorities - including the preeminent concern for ending the genocide of legal abortion - in casting their votes. The title aptly captures the mission of the Church in the present moment.
The work of forming consciences for faithful citizenship clearly now must extend to framing the moral teaching of the Church on matters of policy and encompass how those essential priorities are articulated and championed, not just in the voting booth, but in the basic functioning of civil society.
It is clear that forming consciences for faithful citizenship has, in the light of recent events, become an urgent pastoral priority for the Church in America. It is a task which can school and prepare the faithful to play a prophetic role in the rebuilding of an obviously fractured and broken national society. If left undone, it can also leave the faithful as divided and prone to strife as the rest of the country, as has been shown by the growing influence of fringe voices.
If the bishops want to have a formational voice, it seems necessary that they recognize that divisive and combative figures have stepped into a gap at the heart of Catholic conversation. Addressing that will demand of them the stomach to challenge bitterly confrontational members of their own communities. It will, in all likelihood, be neither an easy or pleasant task, and will involve being on the receiving end of the kind of vitriolic and personal attacks which anyone would avoid if they could.
But, if the Church is to assume any kind of meaningful role in reforming a national society based upon love of neighbor and respect for the truth, the bishops will likely need to begin from within.
My friend Deacon Bill Ditewig adds his voice — and what he has to say is worth hearing:
No one could have predicted the crises we face today, and they are slamming us all at once. Even before the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we were challenged by the erosion of credibility of all institutions, including churches. Our national politics were continuing their toxic descent into entrenched partisan screeching, and no one has been left unaffected. Add the pandemic to the mix and we have entered a whole new reality, affecting each and every one of us. Just when we need to come together to help each other through all of this, safety demands we be kept apart.
All of this has had profound effects on how we are called to be “Church” today: how we gather (or not), how we pray (no singing), and how we continue our mission of spreading the Good News.
Threatening to pull us even further apart, critics of Pope Francis have been doubling down on their accusations against him and his leadership of the church. These critics are adding even more confusion, anger and uncertainty to an already chaotic time.
Go to his siteto read three astute and thoughtful essays he wrote recently for Where Peter Is. You’ll be challenged, uplifted and enriched.
A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. —Matt 13:3-8
In a recent statement, Archbishop Viganò reduces Vatican II to a seedbed of contemporary error animated by the spirit of “Masonry.” I do sympathize with his frustrations regarding the evident confusion in the Church today, the attenuation of Eucharistic faith, the banality of much of what claims to be the Council’s inheritance liturgically, etc.
Yet, is it fair to blame the Council, rejecting it as riddled with error? But would this not mean the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to lapse into prodigious error and further allowed five Popes to teach it enthusiastically for over 50 years? That claim would seem to be the triumph of “Masonry!” Viganò says,
Among other things, this Council has proven to be the only one that has caused so many interpretative problems and so many contradictions with respect to the preceding Magisterium, while there is not one other council—from the Council of Jerusalem to Vatican I—that does not harmonize perfectly with the entire Magisterium or that needs so much interpretation.
However, the Council of Nicaea (325) was controversial from the very moment it closed. Its teaching was only clarified after nearly 60 years of controversy in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. Was Nicaea consistent with previous magisterial teaching? Yes, as clarified in 381, but in its immediate aftermath some thought the homoousios contradicted the condemnation of Paul of Samosata, who did not believe the Son was a distinct Person, or likewise vindicated the heresy of Sabellianism.
Chalcedon (451) may be the Council whose legacy was contested the longest. The next three ecumenical Councils were attempts to grapple with its reception and its relationship to the teaching of Ephesus (431). Nor was there lack of political complexity, within both Church and society, to add to the need for clarification.
Further, did the Second Vatican Council really produce no good worth mentioning? Viganò mentions none. True, its liturgical reforms were commandeered by banality in the United States. For example, there is the introduction of hymns with no aesthetic merit but containing doctrinal errors especially regarding the Eucharist, hymns that de-catechized the very Catholics who faithfully attend Sunday Mass.
But it is equally true, for example, that the reforms produced the beautiful inculturated liturgies in churches across Africa. I attended a Mass celebrated according to the Rite of Zaire in an isolated region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It fully expressed the spirit of the liturgy of the universal Church not in spite of its being celebrated in an unmistakably African voicing, but because of it. In chant and in movement it communicated a dignity commensurate with the “awfulness of the Sacrifice,” as Servant of God Dorothy Day once put it, while clothing it in an un-self-conscious warmth appropriate to the “Sacrament of Charity.”
Another example is a Mass I attended in Abuja, celebrating the ordination of five new priests. The languages, the liturgical gestures, were eclectic. They reflected traditions of Gregorian chant and English hymnody, and a variety of Igbo language hymns and liturgical customs from the new priests’ home villages. But it was all integrated by the deepest conviction of dignity and joy flowing from the Eucharist itself. When, after Communion, the whole assembly recited in unison three times, “O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine,” it seemed that the Holy Spirit was making the deepest possible appeal to our hearts, reaching into our souls, helping us to “pray as we ought.”
Perhaps those of us blaming our own banality of imagination on Vatican II should get out of the house a little and have the humility to learn from others whom we may customarily look down upon as unenlightened?
Further, what about the many beautiful truths that found their most robust magisterial expression in Lumen Gentium? Do we leave behind the exposition of the universal call to holiness? But, it is something which seemed so sublime to me when I first read it at age 19 that the desire to live up to it has never worn off even now. What about the recovery of patristic preaching on the priesthood of the baptized? That is a project which the Council of Trent left for a future age to undertake (Trent was necessarily more focused on correcting the Reformers’ rejection of Holy Orders). Is the most maturely developed articulation of the three degrees of Holy Orders, incorporating but surpassing in precision anything preceding, to be discarded? Are these advances really the work of Masonry?
And, can we not count as an achievement, and not an error, the clarification that the one true Church of Jesus Christ, organized as a visible society, subsists in the Catholic Church? Is it really “Masonry” to find some way of validating the genuine bonds of communion that link separated communions to the Catholic Church? If there are no such genuine bonds, then it is also incoherent to say that the one true Church organized as a visible society is the Catholic Church, because recognizing it as such requires recognizing all the bonds of visible communion as such—including those that remain present in other communions and thus link them to us.
Would we not want to find language allowing us to celebrate the degree of communion preserved with the Coptic Christians whose recent heroic witness “to the point of shedding blood” moved the one non-Christian among them to elect a baptism by blood? Is it not beautiful to be able to say, with the Catechism’s summary of conciliar teaching, that “Christ’s Spirit uses these [separated] Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation,” while qualifying that their “power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church” (CCC §819)? Is this Masonry? Or is it plainly Catholic truth, expressed more fully than in pre-Conciliar formulations? The treatment of this issue by Monsignor Gerard Philips, L’Église et son mystère au II Concile du Vatican (Volume 1, 1967, 117) is worth revisiting.
Relatedly, are we really willing to return to a legalistic interpretation of “There is no salvation outside the Church” that leaves the witness of these Coptic martyrs and others in ambiguity? Philips shows how patristic understanding of this phrase arose in controversies which envisioned counter-claims by heretics, not envisioning situations, such as those considered both by Pius IX and Pius XII regarding souls who find themselves outside of the visible bounds of the Catholic Church through no fault of their own (See: Philips, 192-93).
Is the rigorist understanding of the patristic dictum truly and fully Catholic teaching (and truly patristic)? Or does Vatican II, rather, express that teaching most fully? The Catechism summarizes (§847-48) in a way that I have found useful in freeing undergraduates from a loathing of the Church based on an illusory triumphalism.
Viganò says the “seeds” for contemporary errors were planted at Vatican II, and now we see from their bad fruit that the seed itself was bad. Does this stand up to scrutiny or was there something in the soil? Dei Verbum taught that the human authors of Scripture were “true authors.” Thus the interpreter must “take into account the conditions of their time and culture,” etc. (DV §11-12). Is this a bad seed because it was used by biblical scholars to promote the hegemony of historico-critical methods so much that eventually no other options were even imagined?
Yet, Dei Verbum equally teaches that the Scriptures “have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself,” and so, among other things, must be read “within the living Tradition of the whole Church” (see DV §11-12, CCC §106, 113). A truth only half received can be the seed of error, but through no fault of the truth, but rather of a certain laziness on the part of theologians (like myself!) who settled for a method of biblical interpretation that ended up regarding the exegesis of Church councils (including that of Vatican II) as “pre-critical” impositions on the text.
Another example, sticking with Dei Verbum: Is the relativism that de facto (if not de jure) is the implicit operating assumption of much interreligious dialogue the fault of Vatican II, even though Dei Verbum clearly states that “The Christian economy . . . since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (DV §4, CCC §66)?
Is it the fault of Nostra aetate that theologians (like myself!) have been content to allow the relativism of post-modern culture to operate as an implicit default mode? To emphasize Nostra aetate’s (true!) claim that there is truth in other religions without working equally hard to articulate at the same time how Jesus Christ is the unsurpassable seal on revelation? How would one even recognize truth in other religions did we not already in our own have the fullness of truth whereby to recognize it elsewhere?
Is Vatican II a bad seed? Or, is the seed in question rather the lopsided choice of theologians to develop one strand of conciliar teaching at the expense of others? Not to mention pastors who have so prioritized the true good of making Christian teaching accessible and intelligible to modern people that they downplay its uniqueness as embarrassingly outmoded? I understand the instinct, teaching so many students who think they are looking for just such intelligibility and only that, yet who discover they were actually seeking so much more if you actually give them that “more,” too.
Viganò’s letter has at least had the virtue of forcing me to emerge from complacency in accepting half-measures in the reception of the Council. Perhaps others will find themselves with me in the same boat as well.
EDITORIAL NOTE: An earlier version of this essay appeared in the online version of Inside the Vatican in their Moynihan Letters series. This essay and others in the series will be published in the August-September print issue of Inside the Vatican which will go to press in a few days.
