Archbishop who called Pope Francis 'servant of Satan' summoned for potential excommunication
Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 83, who served as the Vatican's ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2016, was summoned to an extrajudicial trial at the Vatican for "the crime of schism" this week, he announced Thursday on X.
"I have been summoned to the Palace of the Holy Office on June 20, in person or represented by a canon lawyer," wrote Viganò, who faces potential excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church after years of publicly questioning the legitimacy of Pope Francis and portions of the Second Vatican Council.
"I assume that the sentence has already been prepared, given that it is an extrajudicial process," the archbishop added, posting the two-page decree he received from the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith summoning him to trial.
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— Arcivescovo Carlo Maria Viganò (@CarloMVigano) June 20, 2024
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has informed me, with a simple email, of the initiation of… pic.twitter.com/sVQmV2U4Af
Viganò remained defiant in the face of the ecclesiastical action against him, describing them as "an honor."
"I believe that the very wording of the charges confirms the theses that I have repeatedly defended in my various addresses," he continued.
"It is no coincidence that the accusation against me concerns the questioning of the legitimacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the rejection of Vatican II: the Council represents the ideological, theological, moral, and liturgical cancer of which the Bergoglian 'synodal church' is the necessary metastasis."
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has yet to make a public statement on the proceedings against Viganò, according to Vatican News.
"Archbishop Viganò has taken some attitudes and some actions for which he must answer," Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on Thursday, according to Vatican News.
"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," Parolin added. "I don't know what happened."
Viganò has repeatedly made headlines in recent years by calling for the resignation of Pope Francis, to whom he refers to using his given name Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
In 2020, Viganò accused a cabal of leaders within the Catholic Church of allowing "heresy, sodomy and corruption" to run rampant in the institution.
In a letter to then-President Donald Trump, Viganò coined the phrase "deep church" to describe a group of "mercenary infidels who seek to scatter the flock and hand the sheep over to be devoured by ravenous wolves."
In 2018, Viganò penned an 11-page letter accusing dozens of former and current high-level Catholic officials of covering up the accusations of sexual abuse against disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, according to the National Catholic Register.
Viganò took special aim at the pope, accusing him of ignoring his predecessor's sanctions against McCarrick and urging him to resign to "set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses."
In November 2020, the Holy See published a report refuting Viganò's accusations, according to Vatican News.
McCarrick, who served as archbishop of Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2006, was laicized in 2019 amid allegations of abuse against boys and seminarians, though a district court judge in Massachusetts dismissed the case against him last year after concluding that he was unfit to stand trial.
Since the Vatican issued the "Fiducia Supplicans" guidance that allowed "spontaneous blessings" for same-sex couples last December, Pope Francis has weathered fierce criticism from Viganò and other conservative prelates around the world.
In a scathing op-ed for LifeSiteNews in the wake of the guidance, Viganò accused Pope Francis and his allies of serving the devil.
"The delirious Declaration Fiducia Supplicans, recently published by the parody of the former Holy Office renamed the Dicastery, definitively pierces the veil of hypocrisy and deception of the Bergoglian hierarchy, showing these false shepherds for what they really are: servants of Satan and his most zealous allies, beginning with the usurper who sits — an abomination of desolation — on the Throne of Peter," he wrote.
In recent weeks, Pope Francis has repeatedly drawn criticism for using a vulgar Italian word to denounce homosexuality within the Catholic Church.
Speaking to approximately 160 priests at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome earlier this month, Francis reportedly advised against permitting men with homosexual inclinations to attend seminary, noting that that "un'aria di frociaggine" in the church, which translates to "an air of faggotry."
His comment came weeks after the Vatican apologized for the pope's use of the same slur to make the same point last month.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to [email protected]
