Archbishop Viganò: Pope Francis wants to create a ‘schism’ by excommunicating Latin Mass devotees
Pope Francis 'has placed in key positions in the Roman Curia those characters who guarantee the worst possible management of the dicasteries entrusted to them, with the worst possible result and the greatest damage to the ecclesial body,' Viganò said.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Pope Francis
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Mon Jul 24, 2023 - 4:43 pm EDT
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(LifeSiteNews) –– The outspoken former apostolic nuncio to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has argued that Pope Francis is looking to corral devotees of the traditional Mass into the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and then excommunicate the Society.
Speaking with veteran Italian journalist Aldo Maria Valli in a July 15 interview, Archbishop Viganò commented on the recent cardinal-designates announced by Pope Francis and the Pope’s moves against the traditional Mass.
The archbishop stated that the Pope was looking to “create the premises for a schism, which he denies and deplores in words, but which he has been preparing for some time.”
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Such a move, argued Viganò, would be “to separate, in one way or another, the good part of the faithful and clerics from the official Church; and to achieve this, to ensure that they distance themselves from the modernist Sanhedrin, he [Pope Francis] has placed in key positions in the Roman Curia those characters who guarantee the worst possible management of the dicasteries entrusted to them, with the worst possible result and the greatest damage to the ecclesial body.”
To this perceived end, Viganò suggested that the Pope’s restrictions on the traditional Mass were part of a larger move aimed at orchestrating a de facto schism.
This could be achieved by channelling traditional Catholics into the SSPX, he argued, and then issuing an “intolerable provocation” that would “force at least one faction of the Society of Saint Pius X to distance themselves from Bergoglian Rome, sanctioning the ‘excommunication’ of traditionalism, no longer represented within the official Church, if it ever was.”
He argued:
The progressive restrictions on the celebration of the ancient liturgy serve to confine conservatives to hunting reserves, in order to then channel them towards the Society of Saint Pius X, as soon as the Synod leads the doctrinal, moral and disciplinary changes that are in the pipeline to their tragic consequences, causing an exodus of Catholics into what, after the suppression or normalization of the Ecclesia Dei Institutes, will become the “monopolist” of Tradition.
But at that point — that is, when the traditional Catholics have migrated into the Society and its leaders believe they have won a victory over the competition from the suppressed Summorum Pontificum — a new intolerable provocation will force at least one faction of the Society of Saint Pius X to distance themselves from Bergoglian Rome, sanctioning the “excommunication” of traditionalism, no longer represented within the official Church, if it ever was. For this reason, in my opinion, it is important to maintain a certain fragmentation, in order to make the malicious maneuver of expelling traditional Catholics from the ecclesial body more complex.
Highlighting Pope Francis’ promotion of heterodox prelates—such as Cardinal-designate Victor Manuel Fernández—Viganò stated that the Pope’s aim is “to create confrontation, let it grow, encourage the supporters of the most extreme requests with appointments and promotions.” This, he stated, would lead to a “predictable reaction of condemnation” from the “few good remaining bishops, priests, and religious,” who by doing so would encounter “Bergoglio’s trap door.”
READ: Vatican denies Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage permission to say Latin Mass in St. Peter’s
They would then “have two choices: either to return to suffer in silence, or or to stand up, denounce the betrayal of Catholic Truth, and be forced to leave one’s post and exercise the ministry clandestinely or at least in apparent canonical irregularity.”
By this method, “the Bergoglian hierarchy will be able to exercise full control over the clergy and people, certain of the obedience of those who remain,” Viganò argued. “And this sect, which will only have the name of Catholic (and perhaps not even that anymore), will totally eclipse the Bride of the Lamb, in the paradox of a traitorous and corrupt Hierarchy that abuses Christ’s authority to destroy his Church.”
The archbishop expanded on these statements in a subsequent conversation with Valli, in which Viganò recalled how Pope Francis had already stated “I am not afraid of schisms.” Viganò commented:
And while he [Francis] stated that “schismatics always have one thing in common, they detach themselves from people, from the faith of the people, from the faith of the people of God,” he added: “The morality of ideology leads you to rigidity, and today we have so many schools of rigidity within the Church, which are not schisms, but they are pseudo-schismatic Christian ways that will end badly: when you see rigid Christians, bishops, and priests, there are problems behind them, there is not the sanity of the Gospel.” As usual, he accused Catholics of doing what he himself was about to do.
Referring to Pope Francis’ July 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, Archbishop Viganò argued that the text was a means to effect such a plan of fomenting a schism. To this, he added the current practice of how “the Vatican does not hesitate to limit the rights of Bishops to prevent them from helping certain traditional communities to survive, [and] it significantly extends the rights of other Bishops beyond the law – by sanating the irregularities and abuses of its own lackeys – whenever it serves to suppress and persecute such communities.”
“To this we may add the Constitution Vultum Dei Quærere and the Instruction Cor Orans, with which Bergoglio has deprived monastic communities of their autonomy and arranged them into federations under the strict control of ultra-progressives – along with Chinese-style reprogramming – of the self-styled Dicastery for Religious,” he continued.
What about an impending schism?
When questioned by Valli about what devotees of the traditional liturgy and faith should do when such devotion is deemed to be increasingly hostile to the current Vatican program, Viganò outlined an image of an abducted Church. He stated that since the Second Vatican Council “we have become accustomed to seeing the authority of the Pastors used against the faithful and against the Church herself, all while maintaining an appearance of formal legitimacy.”
The “Council” itself – the only Council that is dear to the heart of the Modernists, because it is the only one of which they are the architects and that has nothing Catholic about it – was a colossal deception against the ecclesial body, because it maintained the authority of an Ecumenical Council while fraudulently insinuating heretical doctrines; it maintained the authority of the Council Fathers and the Roman Pontiff precisely as it was being used to demolish the Catholic edifice; it imposed blind and servile obedience to norms in contrast with the uninterrupted and immutable Magisterium.
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Addressing the “abolition of the traditional Liturgy,” which he said was “intended by Paul VI using his apostolic authority,” Viganò described this action as “a fraud.”
And the current attempt to cancel Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum with an analogous Motu Proprio – apparently carrying the same canonical efficacy – is no less malicious.
Such an action – meaning Traditionis Custodes – is intended for the “ruin” of the Church and of souls, argued the outspoken prelate:
Its aim is not the good of the Church and the salvation of the faithful, but the ruin of both. On the other hand, even the accusation of blasphemy that the Sanhedrin brought against Our Lord had all the appearances of a formally unexceptionable action, even though it was intrinsically illegitimate and null, because it was used against the Divine and Innocent Legislator.
He alluded to Pope Francis’ campaign against the traditional liturgy as a form of “authoritarianism,” by which an individual governs in his own name but “not because he is a vicar of the authority of Christ.”
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“This makes it a subversive power,” he said, “unchained from any duty to conform itself to the will of Christ in pursuing the common good, and for this reason it is inexorably destined to transform itself into hateful tyranny.”
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- Aldo Maria Valli
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