"So honored by Archbishop Viganò's incredible letter to me. I hope everyone, religious or not, reads it!" Trump tweeted, linking to a letter which the controversial former papal nuncio addressed to him on Sunday.

With that tweet, Trump introduced Viganò to a wider audience and returned him to the fray of American politics.

Viganò's letter, written against the backdrop of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the protests after George Floyd's death, praises Trump for combating the "deep state," which Vigano alleges is trying to undermine the president.

"It is quite clear that the use of street protests is instrumental to the purposes of those who would like to see someone elected in the upcoming presidential elections who embodies the goals of the deep state and who expresses those goals faithfully and with conviction," Vigano wrote.

"It will not be surprising if, in a few months, we learn once again that hidden behind these acts of vandalism and violence there are those who hope to profit from the dissolution of the social order so as to build a world without freedom."

Viganò went on to praise Trump for participating in the March for Life, his defense of religious freedom and for his controversial visit to the St. John Paul II Shrine last week.

He also claimed that "civil disturbances" in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody were provoked by "deep state" operatives because "the virus is inevitably fading" and "the social alarm of the pandemic is waning."

Another of Viganò's allegations is the existence of a "deep church" within Catholicism made up of "mercenary infidels who seek to scatter the flock and hand the sheep over to be devoured by ravenous wolves."

"They are subservient to the deep state, to globalism, to aligned thought, to the New World Order which they invoke ever more frequently in the name of a universal brotherhood which has nothing Christian about it, but which evokes the Masonic ideals of those who want to dominate the world by driving God out of the courts, out of schools, out of families, and perhaps even out of churches," Viganò wrote.

He claimed restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 were part of a Masonic plot to establish a new world order.

Viganò dismissed recent protests against racism and police brutality across the U.S. and around the world, claiming they were an instrument used to influence the upcoming presidential elections and "build a world without freedom."

His letter to Trump was released four days after Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory denounced that visit, saying it was "baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles."

The letter was published on 6 June by LifeSiteNews, a regular sounding board for the pope's critics.

Source

• Washington Examiner
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: America Magazine

Their statement is based on a hand-written record of a meeting they had with Viganò.

Lombardi is the former director of the Holy See Press Office and Rodica his English-language assistant.

Viganò claims Francis knew well who Kim Davis was, and that the Vatican hierarchy approved in advance the controversial meeting Francis had with her on 24 September 2015 during the papal visit to the United States.

He also claimed that, when summoned to Rome urgently after news of the meeting leaked, the pope had nothing but praise for his efforts in organising the trip.

Rosica transcribed what he said were handwritten notes from a meeting he and Lombardi had with Viganò the evening after Viganò's meeting with Francis.

He quoted verbatim the former nuncio as telling them: "The Holy Father in his paternal benevolence thanked me for his visit to the USA but also said that I had deceived him [in] bringing that woman to the nunciature."

Viganò added, "The pope told me: ‘You never told me that she had four husbands.'"

Father Lombardi confirmed Rosica's record of the meeting as "reliable."

According to their statement, Lombardi and Rosica showed Viganò what the media had reported, and Rosica informed Viganò that "a journalist has a tape recording of you or one of the monsignors at the nunciature who phoned Davis at her hotel the evening before her meeting with the pope."

Viganò was shocked at this and even more so when Rosica played the recording of a person at the nunciature telling Davis: "A vehicle will pick you and your lawyer up at the hotel tomorrow morning and bring you to the nunciature.

"Change your hairstyle so people will not recognize you so quickly."

Rosica said no Holy See officials were involved in the drafting of the statement with Lombardi, but that he shared a copy of it with the Vatican secretary of state and foreign minister.

Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, had been briefly jailed for refusing to sign the marriage licences of homosexual couples seeking to register their marriages in the midst of a national debate in the United States about same-sex marriages.

The encounter created a media frenzy in the United States that threatened to overshadow the pope's historic visit in September

Source

• americamagazine.org
• kansascity.com
• usnews.com
• Image: catholicdialogue.com

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who is the prefect of the papal household for Pope Francis, says Pope-emeritus Benedict "has not commented" on an 11-page letter from Viganò, which was released by the press on 25 August.

The letter alleges Benedict placed sanctions on McCarrick in 2008 or 2009 that barred McCarrick from celebrating Mass publicly or traveling, and ordered him to live a life of prayer and penance.

The National Catholic Register (NCR), one of two outlets that originally published Viganò's letter, said in its 25 August article that it had "independently confirmed that the allegations against McCarrick were certainly known to Benedict."

Three days later, the New York Times reported that one of the people Viganò consulted with while writing his statement was US lawyer Timothy Busch.

Busch is on the board of governors of EWTN, which owns NCR.

Busch told the Times that NCR editors "had personally assured him that the former pope, Benedict XVI, had confirmed Archbishop Viganò's account."

Gänswein says any reports that Benedict had confirmed parts of Viganò's statement "lack any foundation."

Claims about Benedict's "sanctions' against McCarrick are also contradicted by historical records.

These include, for example, McCarrick being seen celebrating numerous public Masses throughout Benedict's papacy and continuing to travel around the world until June this year.

That was when the Vatican announced it had ordered his removal from ministry over an accusation of abuse that had been deemed credible.

Since the release of Viganò's statement, numerous photos have emerged of McCarrick at the Vatican after 2009, including one of him greeting Benedict on 28 February 2013, the day he renounced the papacy.

Source

• Die Tagespost
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Zimbio