Vatican excommunicates Archbishop Viganò, found guilty of schism

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former nuncio to the US, has been excommunicated after being discovered responsible of schism, the Vatican mentioned.

Members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Religion met July 4 to finish an extrajudicial penal course of towards Archbishop Viganò, who was accused of “the reserved delict of schism,” the dicastery introduced in a press launch July 5.

“His public statements manifesting his refusal to acknowledge and undergo the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church topic to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well-known,” the dicastery wrote.

“On the conclusion of the penal course of, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Viganò was discovered responsible of the reserved delict of schism,” it mentioned. 

The dicastery thereby declared the archbishop mechanically excommunicated in accordance with canon regulation. “This choice was communicated to the Most Reverend Viganò on 5 July 2024,” it mentioned.

“The lifting of the censure in these circumstances is reserved to the Apostolic See,” it added.

The 83-year-old Italian archbishop labored as secretary common on the Vatican’s governing workplace from 2009 to 2011 earlier than he was named apostolic nuncio to the US from 2011 till his retirement in 2016. He had beforehand served as a everlasting observer to the Council of Europe and apostolic pro-nuncio to Nigeria earlier than he went again to Rome as an official of the Secretariat of State in 1998.

In a June 20 submit on X, the archbishop printed a letter he mentioned he acquired from the dicastery over electronic mail informing him of the extrajudicial trial. The letter, written on the dicastery’s stationary and signed by Msgr. John Kennedy, secretary for the dicastery’s part for self-discipline, mentioned the archbishop was summoned to seem on the dicastery’s workplace June 20 to listen to “the accusations and proof towards him concerning the crime of schism of which he’s accused.”

The archbishop later mentioned on social media that he refused to go to the workplace or face the costs since he didn’t acknowledge the authority of the dicastery, its prefect or Pope Francis.

Archbishop Viganò is energetic on social media and writes usually on the weblog of his affiliation, “Exsurge Domine,” the place he has continued to be vocal about his opposition to Pope Francis and Vatican II.

For instance, in a 2020 letter written by Archbishop Viganò and printed on Contained in the Vatican, the archbishop mentioned “it’s simple that from Vatican II onwards a parallel church was constructed, superimposed over and diametrically against the true Church of Christ.”

Archbishop Viganò additionally wrote in a submit on X in November 2023 that Pope Francis’ “incompatibility” with the operate of the papacy “confirms his defect of consent within the assumption of the Papacy,” however he specified that his feedback shouldn’t be taken to imply he shares the opinion of sedevacantists.

Reacting to the letter he acquired from the dicastery concerning the trial, the archbishop wrote, “I regard the accusations towards me as an honor.” The accusation towards him issued for questioning each the legitimacy of Pope Francis and the Second Vatican Council confirms that the “synodal church” promoted by the pope is the metastasis of the “ideological, theological, ethical, and liturgical most cancers” of Vatican II, he wrote in a weblog submit printed June 20.

He went on to put in writing that he doesn’t need “any ecclesial communion” with the pope or his collaborators however claimed that he stays “in full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church” and the magisterium of the popes.

The Code of Canon Legislation defines schism as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church topic to him.”