Vatican excommunicates pope critic for ‘schism’
VATICAN CITY—Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a fierce ultraconservative critic of Pope Francis, has been found guilty of schism and excommunicated, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said on Friday.
The 83-year-old Vigano, who was the papal envoy in Washington from 2011 to 2016, went into hiding in 2018 after alleging that Francis knew for years about US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual conduct yet did nothing about it.
Earlier, he branded the Pope a “false prophet” and a “servant of Satan.”
The Vatican rejected Vigano’s accusations of a cover-up of sexual misconduct and last month summoned him to answer charges of schism, or the crime of splitting the Church, and denying the Pope’s legitimacy.
In a statement on Friday, the Doctrine of the Faith office said his public comments made it clear that he refused “to recognize and submit” to Pope Francis.
Vigano had also rejected the legitimacy of liberal reforms made by the Roman Catholic Church in the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, the office said.
Quoting Jesus
“At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Vigano was found guilty of the reserved delict (violation of the law) of schism,” its statement said, adding that he had been excommunicated, or banished, from the Church.
An excommunicated Catholic is prohibited from administering and receiving the sacraments and from exercising ecclesiastical functions, according to canon law.
In a message on social network X, Vigano remained unrepentant, publishing the full text of the decision against him, which warned that he could be expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood if he persisted in his stance.
He urged the Catholic faithful to voice their support for him, quoting Jesus in the New Testament: “If they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start shouting.”
The Vatican ruling was signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, head of the doctrinal office, and by its secretary, Father John Joseph Kennedy.
As is normal in such matters, it was not signed by the Pope, but it is highly unlikely that the punishment was meted out without his approval.
‘Immigrationist, gay-friendly’
Vigano, who mostly communicates via X, said last month that he had refused to take part in the proceedings against him because he did not accept the legitimacy of the institutions behind it.
“I do not recognize the authority of the tribunal that claims to judge me, nor of its prefect, nor of the one who appointed him,” he said, referring to Fernandez and to Francis.
Still, he said “I regard the accusations against me as an honor.”
Vigano referred to the Pope only by his surname, “Bergoglio,” as he accused him of representing an “inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable and gay-friendly” Church that had strayed from its true message.
Francis has angered many conservatives by making overtures toward divorcées and the LGBTQ+ community, and by saying that mercy and forgiveness should come before the strict enforcement of Catholic doctrine.
But he was also criticized recently after privately lamenting the spread of “frociaggine” (faggotness) in seminaries. The Pope later apologized for those remarks.
Support for Trump
Last month, Vigano wrote: “I accuse Jorge Mario Bergoglio of heresy and schism, and I ask that he be judged as a heretic and schismatic and removed from the Throne which he has unworthily occupied for over 11 years.”
He derided the Pope’s “delirious encyclicals” about climate change and authorization of blessings for same-sex couples.
He also accused Francis of promoting his allies at the expense of Church leaders like arch-conservative Bishop Joseph Strickland.
The Pope dismissed Strickland in November last year after he repeatedly criticized the papacy from his Tyler, Texas, diocese.
In 2018, Vigano made headlines by calling for Francis’ resignation, publishing a scathing list of accusations over the Pope’s management of sexual abuse cases within the Church.
He again caused a major scandal in 2019 by publishing a long letter of unconditional support for then-US President Donald Trump, criticizing confinement measures during the pandemic and defending a crackdown on rioters in the United States.
