Catholic Family News

Archbishop Viganò: Is the Pope Catholic?

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has released a speech given for an online conference that contains one of his most stark warnings about the current crisis in the Church. Following up on the conference he was not permitted to present at the Catholic Identity Conference in November, he offers further reflections on the great mystery that is the current pontificate. He explains that a great “abyss” exists between the actions of great popes such as Pope Pius XII and the current onslaught of novelty. He sums up that under Francis the august authority of the papal office: “has been perverted into arrogant authoritarianism and tyranny; the healthy sense of belonging to Holy Orders of clerics and Prelates has been corrupted into clericalism; the fixed immutability of revealed Truth, founded on the perfect immutability of God – and even of that truth naturally knowable through reason – has yielded to permanent revolution and chaos, to the provisionality of . . . speak pleasing things to us . . . and to the arbitrariness of the debatable. . . .”

Viganò notes that although many in and outside of the Church are scandalized by what Francis does, they do not know how to react or what to do. He keenly observes that the problem is that such people do not see Francis as the effect but rather as the cause. They think he is doing something unique rather than understanding that he is the product of the revolution of Vatican II. The Archbishop explains: “Because they disagree with him, but not with Vatican II; nor are they willing to recognize that it was precisely from that Council that the revolutionary process arose which permitted a person like Jorge Mario to enter the Society of Jesus, be ordained, become a Bishop, be created Cardinal, and finally to enter a Conclave and come out of it as ‘pope.'” Many in the Church refuse to admit that the revolutionary proposals of Francis are part of an entire revolutionary movement, one that has infiltrated the Church for decades and which works hand in glove with revolutionaries in the civil sphere. Yet, we need not get lost in abstract speculation about this fact. For Catholics the solution is simple. We cannot collaborate in the attempted (it will fail ultimately) dismembering of the Church. He states: “Our task must not be to engage in the abstract speculations of canonists, but to resist with all our strength – and with the help of God’s Grace – the explicitly destructive action of the Jesuit Argentine, refusing with courage and determination any collaboration” with his destructive agenda.

Yet, does this mean that Archbishop Viganò has become a “sedevacantist?” I have spoken and written in the past about the unhelpfullness of this term since it does not describe a unified set of beliefs. Yet, whatever that term means, I think that Viganò carefully chooses his words to avoid formally embracing this position. Yes, he puts forward speculations about possible irregularities that could call into question the legitimacy of the result of the 2013 conclave. He touches on the mysteries and rumors around Benedict XVI’s resignation as well as questions about the intentions at the conclave. Yet, in the end although the Archbishop states that Francis is a “false prophet,” he warns “we do not have the authority . . . to officially declare that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not Pope.” Thus, the full implications of the Vatican II revolution are undeniably on display these past eleven years and we can clearly see these fruits are not Catholic but only the official hierarchy as such can declare a person to be a usurper. It is not a matter of private action or judgement, even of a single bishop. That leaves us at an “impasse” that makes any “human solution impossible.” All we can do is refuse our obedience to this destructive revolution. Thus, it would seem Archbishop Viganò does not embrace formal sedevacantism although he speculatively discusses some points on which some sedevacantists would agree. He is clear that we must resist the destructive changes being foisted upon the Church but not usurp the authority of the hierarchy to make the juridical determiantions.

It is unclear to what extent some of Archbishop Viganò’s prior writings on this topic have evolved. For example does he still hold to the two concurrent entity theory explained by Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (i.e. that the post-Counciliar popes are at the same time holding the office of head of the Catholic Church and the Counciliar Church). Perhaps further interventions of the Archbishop will clarify such questions.

In any event we reproduce below the full text of his reflections for consideration (not necessarily complete recommendation) since as he suggests himself the full meaning of what is happening may elude us speculatively. As we have always said such delicate topics can be addressed more appropriately by a legitimate member of the hierarchy. It is not to the laity or simple priests to advance such arguments. All we need to do is follow the warnings of good shepherds to refuse obedience to revolution. Libera nos Domine!

*************************


“Aspicite nobis illusiones”

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

for the Online Conference organized by Professor Edmund Mazza

“Is the Pope Catholic?”

December 9, 2023

Premise

Qui dicunt videntibus: “Nolite videre” et aspicientibus: “Nolite aspicere nobis ea, quae recta sunt; loquimini nobis placentia, aspicite nobis illusiones.”

They say to the seers: “See not,” And to the prophets: “Do not give us true prophecies; speak pleasing things to us, prophesy illusions for us!”

Is 30:10

This online conference organized by Professor Edmund Mazza has as its theme a topic that is only recently becoming publicly discussed, after more than ten years of horrors worse than those we have witnessed in the last sixty years, but perfectly consistent with the philosophical and theological foundations laid for the present crisis by the Second Vatican Council. Is the Pope Catholic? A question like this in other times would have sounded almost like blasphemy, so deeply rooted was the respect and love of the faithful for the Roman Pontiff, considered to be like sweet Christ on earth. Who, in the time of Pius XII, would have dared to question his moral and magisterial authority? And on the other hand, why would the faithful have had any need to express dissent against a pope, since each pope’s voice was an expression of an uninterrupted continuity with his Predecessors and with the Divine Master? Listening to Jorge Mario Bergoglio speak today and comparing his words with those of the Pastor Angelicus [Pius XII] makes us understand the abyss that separates a true pope from his grotesque parody, the abyss that divides the Vicar of Christ from the simia Pontificis [the ape of the pope]. The hieratic authority of all the popes from Saint Peter to Pius XII, intimately bound to the divine authority of Christ the Eternal High Priest, has been perverted into arrogant authoritarianism and tyranny; the healthy sense of belonging to Holy Orders of clerics and Prelates has been corrupted into clericalism; the fixed immutability of revealed Truth, founded on the perfect immutability of God – and even of that truth naturally knowable through reason – has yielded to permanent revolution and chaos, to the provisionality of “loquimini nobis placentia” – “speak pleasing things to us” – and to the arbitrariness of the debatable: “aspicite nobis illusiones” – “prophesy illusions for us.” (Is 30:10).

Cognitive Dissonance

But just as in the face of the sudden deaths of millions of people in the world after the criminal inoculation campaign following the psychopandemic fraud, there are people who still refuse to recognize the causal relationship between the administration of the experimental gene serum and the mass extermination planned and declared by the élite. So also in the ecclesial sphere in the face of the devastation caused by the conciliar revolution and the so-called “liturgical reform” there are still those who do not want to admit the causal relationship between the less criminal action of those experts and consultors – who were notoriously modernist well before Vatican II and as such rightly condemned by the Holy Office or regarded with suspicion by the Bishops – who used nothing less than an Ecumenical Council as a prestigious stage on which to perform the false and deceitful pièce of dialogue with the world, ecumenism, democratization and parliamentarization of the Church, all with the endorsement of the “Popes of the Council.” That assembly was rightly defined by its own architects as “the 1789 of the Church.” John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI did not fail to emphasize how the revolutionary and Masonic principles – liberté, égalité, fraternité – could in some way be shared and made their own by Catholicism, starting from the acceptance, indeed the convinced promotion of the secularity of the State and the substantial cancellation of the divine and universal Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you have the patience to follow me in my examination, you will see that the Social Kingship of Christ is the petra scandali (1 Pet 2:8) – the stumbling stone against which all the accomplices of the antichristic plan of the New World Order crash indiscriminately.

The Causal Relationship

The vexata quæstio – “Is Bergoglio Catholic?” – is addressed from many different angles according to differing criteria stemming from various cultural heritages: the traditional scholastic point of view; the moderate and conciliar, or, we could say, the Montinian point of view; and the one that wavers, so to speak, between the two shores, recognizing Bergoglio as Pope although being de facto canonically independent from him. But we must recognize that today it is possible to share, along with many priests and laity, a feeling of serious unease and grave scandal due to the cumbersome presence of the Argentine Jesuit. Today we are able to ask ourselves whether Bergoglio is Catholic, and it is already a good starting point, because his heterogeneity to the papacy is now evident and perceived both by the simple faithful as well as by a large part of the clergy, and even by certain fringes of the media. The Hierarchy limits itself to demonstrating either cowardice or complicity with the tyrant, and the few discordant voices do not dare to draw the necessary conclusions in the face of the heresies and nonsense of the tenant of Santa Marta. Because they disagree with him, but not with Vatican II; nor are they willing to recognize that it was precisely from that Council that the revolutionary process arose which permitted a person like Jorge Mario to enter the Society of Jesus, be ordained, become a Bishop, be created Cardinal, and finally to enter a Conclave and come out of it as “pope.” For them, it is permissible to criticize Bergoglio, but only on the condition that one never criticizes the conciliar idol, the untouchable fetish of the Montinians who today, compared to the horrors of the Argentine Jesuit, seem to be champions of Catholic orthodoxy.

And here we come to the punctum dolens, that is, the great contradiction that unites the proponents of Vatican II with its historical opponents – the Society of St. Pius X in primis – in wanting to proceed with an evaluation of objectively extraordinary facts using ordinary norms of evaluation. As I have often said, it seems to me that some commentators are more concerned about the doctrine of the papacy than with the salvation of souls, so that they find themselves preferring to be governed by a heretical and apostate pope rather than recognizing that a heretic or an apostate cannot be at the head of the Church to which, as such, he does not belong. Thus, we have all sorts of hair-splitting about the distinctions between formal and material heresy, none of which do the least thing to impede Bergoglio’s destructive action. The objection that accusing the “reigning Pontiff” of heresy or apostasy could cause division and scandal is belied by the evidence of the division and scandal that is already widely present in the ecclesial body precisely because of Bergoglio’s heresy and apostasy, which is, so to speak, the tip of the iceberg of a much worse and more widespread crisis of the Hierarchy and of the Clergy that began sixty years ago and has now almost reached its peak.

A Single Subversive Plan

A few weeks ago, an important collaborator of Hillary Clinton and John Podesta was arrested for pedophilia and child pornography. I am referring to Slade Sohmer, a man with ties to the world of Broadway and cinema, who played a role in the effort to debunk the infamous “Pizzagate” affair, that is, the network of filthy complicity and horrendous crimes against minors that revolves around the international deep state. We have learned that certainly Jeffrey Epstein and most likely Ghislaine Maxwell were members of the Israeli Mossad. This makes us understand that the famous trips of many well- known people to Epstein’s island were used to blackmail them by collecting evidence of their guilt in participating in heinous ritual crimes against minors. And if the Heads of State and government officials of the Western world do not dare to breathe a word of protest against the massacres of civilians in the Gaza Strip, it is legitimate to assume that this attitude is due to the extensive dossiers and videos inculpating them that are in the possession of the Israeli intelligence services. The same thing must have happened with the preparation of the fake pandemic emergency, which was slavishly replicated in all the member states of the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, and also with the farce of the Ukrainian crisis (let’s not forget about Gaza Marine, the huge natural gas field right off the coast of the Gaza Strip, a target that is quite tempting at a time when gas supplies from Russia have been blocked by economic sanctions that benefit the multinationals and their investment funds). But if this blackmail of the powerful of the world constitutes the unifying element of the globalist subversive project, we cannot help but think that the indispensable role played by the Catholic Church has been in some way forced not only by the appointment of Bergoglio as an emissary of the enemies of the Church placed in the very top position, but also by the sexual and financial scandals that have only partially emerged due to the many Prelates who are agents of the deep church. How can we think that a person like Theodore McCarrick, who entered the White House without the need to be announced and who continued to represent the Vatican’s diplomatic interests in China even after he was accused of being a serial predator, did not enjoy the support of those powerful individuals, who shared with him the most vile vices and the most heinous crimes? Are we to think that the partnership between the deep state and the deep church was limited to complicity in financial speculation, when a pedophile like Slade Sohmer collaborated with the Clintons and Barack Obama, all of whom were implicated in Pizzagate? Or that Bill Gates’ numerous flights to Epstein’s island, along with those of numerous actors, rulers, politicians, bankers, and VIPs have nothing to do with the network of complicity of the lavender mafia?

From the leaked emails in the Wikileaks case, we know that John Podesta was working on behalf of Hillary Clinton and Obama – and the globalist elite in general – to promote a “colored revolution” within the Church that was supposed to oust Benedict XVI from the papacy, elect an ultra-progressive pope, and substantially modify the Catholic Magisterium by making it accept the demands of the Agenda 2030: gender equality, the introduction of gender ideology and LGBTQ+ doctrine, the democratization of Church governance, collaboration in the neo-Malthusian project of the Great Reset, cooperation on immigrationism, and cancel culture. It seems clear to me that this subversive project has found perfect realization in the appointment of Bergoglio – and I use the word “appointment” deliberately – and that it is confirmed by his consistent pattern of acts of governance and magisterial teaching, both public and private, over the course of this most inauspicious decade. An action that has in fact carried out the wishes (desiderata), or rather the mandates (mandata), the orders of the elite, point by point, and in such a precise way as to be unequivocal: gender equality with the opening of roles in ecclesiastical government and ministry to women; the moral legitimization of sodomy and gender ideology with the admission of sodomites and transsexuals to the role of godparents and being witnesses at weddings; fake democratization, following the model of oligarchies in the civil sphere, through “synodality;” the acceptance of pseudo-environmentalist demands with a drastic downsizing of the condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, and genetic manipulation through the subversion of the Pontifical Academy for Life; the campaign to welcome illegal immigrants in the name of an inevitability of the mixing of races that is not free from economic interests; cancel culture with its denigration of the history of the Church and the falsification of the Holy Scriptures. And indeed, on closer inspection it is always the promise of an economic quid pro quo that binds the members of the deep church with the agents of the deep state: the elite has paid them the pretium sanguinis of their betrayal with sponsorships and funding. I wonder if Bergoglio’s grotesque attempts to re-evaluate Judas do not betray the instinctive sympathy of a traitor for Iscariot, mercator pessimus.

So let’s go back to the pretium sanguinis, the payment of services rendered by people who have been blackmailed not only by those who know the most disconcerting and obscure secrets about them, but also by those who agree with them while holding similar roles in other nations, in the European Parliament, the UN, the World Bank, or in other international institutions. Imagine if Canadian Prime

Minister Justin Trudeau dared to consider dissociating himself from certain issues – for example, the silence about Netanyahu’s war crimes in Gaza – thus disobeying the orders given to him. Even before the news reached the media, it would be his counterparts in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, France, Holland, Belgium, and God knows where else, who would put pressure on him to keep quiet, knowing full well that the Mossad would not hesitate for a moment to drag into scandal – and jail – not only Trudeau (on whom charges for rape of a minor are pending, for now held up in some prosecutor’s office), but also those members of the international pedophile elite who have evidence of other crimes committed by the same Justin Trudeau. For this reason, it was necessary for corruption to become endemic to the system, so that the globalist cancer could be etched into it.

And it would be foolish or irresponsible to believe that the Bergoglian hierarchy is exempt from this blackmail. We know rather that it is largely involved in the same vices, with the protection of Bergoglio himself. On the other hand, what credibility can the Argentine Jesuit claim to have, when in the case of McCarrick he personally decided as res judicata the conviction without trial of one of the most powerful cardinals of the last fifty years, avoiding the examination of witnesses who could have given the names of his accomplices, who are now promoted to the highest levels of the Church or public institutions? Do you think, if it was possible to perpetrate electoral fraud with impunity in order to oust Donald Trump from the White House, that they failed to do the same thing at the 2013 conclave, taking into account how compromised the majority of the College of Cardinals is? The fact that the fraud is public and still unpunished is, if anything, an aggravating circumstance stemming from the arrogance of believing oneself omnipotent and invincible.

The Case of the Heretic Pope: Between Abstract Hypothesis and Concrete Reality

When Saint Robert Bellarmine hypothesized, as an academic study, the question of whether a Roman Pontiff could fall into heresy, he imagined a Pope who, while convinced that he continued to hold the Catholic faith, adhered materially or formally to one particular heresy, in a general context in which the social and ecclesial body remained Catholic. Bellarmine could never have imagined that an emissary of Freemasonry could go so far as to be elected pope with the purpose of demolishing the Church from within, usurping and abusing the very power of the papacy itself against the papacy. Nor could he have imagined that a hypothetical pope would surpass mere heresy and embrace all-out apostasy. No Doctor of the Church has ever contemplated the possibility of an apostate pope, or of an election falsified and manipulated by powers avowedly hostile to Christ, because such an enormity could only happen in a unique and extraordinary context such as that of the final persecution foretold by the Prophet Daniel and described by Saint Paul. Our Lord’s admonition videritis abominationem desolationis – when you shall see the abomination of desolation (Mt 24:15) – is to be understood as such precisely because of its absolute uniqueness and for the fact that everyone will see fulfilled – some with horror, some with satanic satisfaction – the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place: qui legit intelligat – let the one who reads understand (Mt 24:15).

Catholics today are scandalized by the fearful silence of Cardinals and Bishops for the same reason that citizens are shocked by the complicity of politicians, doctors, journalists, judges, and law enforcement in the betrayal of the social contract. They have come to understand that it is the entire system that is hostage to the enemy, and that it is useless to hope to obtain justice and truth from those who are in support of the global coup d’état, whether in in the civil or ecclesiastical sphere. The subversive operation is so efficient and organized that it unequivocally shows the work of a Luciferian intelligence that goes far beyond the alleged cunning of Klaus Schwab or a Rockefeller. This is why the “Bergoglio problem” cannot be solved by ordinary means: no society can survive the total corruption of the authority that governs it, and the Church is no different, when her members – and especially her Pastors – refuse to recognize the root causes of this doctrinal, moral, and spiritual corruption and limit themselves to deploring the excesses of this or that statement made by Bergoglio, without understanding that we are dealing with the homo iniquus et dolosus of Psalm 42 – the unjust and deceitful man – unjust because of the purposes he has, deceitful because of the means he uses to attain those unjust ends. To speak of formal heresy in Bergoglio’s case is like accusing of mere embezzlement the criminals who are now killing millions of people with lethal serums, poisoned air and water, harmful and artificial foods, planned famines and pestilences, induced sterility, and death – either actual physical death or civil ostracization. We are as far beyond heresy as we are beyond the normal crimes of which heads of State can be accused, with the aggravating circumstance that the culprit knows (or rather hopes) that he can save himself from condemnation because his main accusers consider him to be the Supreme Pontiff, and as such exempt from any human tribunal. Prima Sedes a nemine judicatur – The First See is judged by no one. It was precisely on this principle that those who had him elected “pope” relied, but they forgot a small detail: the intention to harm the Church by acting on behalf of an enemy power is not compatible with the acceptance of the papacy, and there is therefore a defect of consent given by the will of the one elected – confirmed by his words and deeds over the last ten years – namely, intending to act in fraudem legis, circumventing canon law and concealing his intentions from the very first appearance on the Loggia of the Vatican. I repeat: we are not dealing with a situation where a pope adheres to one specific heresy (which, moreover, Bergoglio has done repeatedly). No. The situation is rather that a man was sent into the conclave with orders to revolutionize the Church from the top, while sitting on the Chair of Peter. And again: he did not assume the papacy unreservedly and only later allow himself to be persuaded by bad counselors to act in a questionable way. No. Instead, his premeditation is evident, confirmed both by the correspondence of his actions with the orders that had already been given by the deep church under the pontificate of Benedict XVI – whether by the conspirators of the “Saint Gallen Mafia” or the “Pact of the Catacombs,” it matters little – and by the repeated meetings of the Argentine Jesuit with exponents of the globalist elite and the world’s financial potentates before the eyes of all.

The Defect of Consent

It is plausible that Benedict XVI’s Declaratio of 11 February 2013, due to the critical issues masterfully highlighted by Professor Enrico Maria Radaelli, led to a situation of canonical irregularity that preceded the conclave of March 2013 such as to invalidate it and thus also render null and void the election of the successor of Benedict XVI, regardless of whether the one elected was Bergoglio or a new Pius X. But

even if Benedict XVI legitimately abdicated – although aware of the risk of making the election of the Argentine Jesuit materially possible – it is the malicious intention to abuse the authority and power of the papacy, assuming it by means of deception, which makes the vitium consensus real and makes Bergoglio a usurper of the Throne of Peter. The consensus and support for the Argentine Jesuit comes significantly from the ultra-progressive and pro-heretical wing that sponsored his election: all notorious members of the deep church and closely-linked to the homosexual and pedophile lobby of the deep state.

If there are those who stubbornly insist on examining the finger of those who denounce this coup d’état and not at the moon of Bergoglio’s evident coherence with it, we cannot behave as if we were resolving a question of a point of Canon Law. No. The Lord is being outraged, the Church is being humiliated, and souls are being lost because a usurper remains on the Throne, one whose acts of governance and magisterium can be judged in light of the words of Our Lord:

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from brambles? Thus every good tree produces good fruit, and every bad tree produces bad fruit; A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down andthrown into the fire. By their fruits, therefore, you will be able to discern them (Mt 7:15-20).

You heard it correctly: A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit, which means that Bergoglio’s uninterrupted behavior – before, during, and after his election – alone counts as proof of his inherent iniquity.

Can we be morally certain, then, that the tenant of Santa Marta is a false prophet? My answer is: Yes. Are we therefore authorized in conscience to revoke our obedience to someone who, presenting himself as pope, is in reality acting like the Biblical wild boar in the Lord’s vineyard (Ps 79:14), or like the hireling, qui non est pastor, cuius non sunt oves propriæ – who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not – et non pertinet ad eum de ovibus – and who has no care for the sheep (Jn 10:12-13)? Yes.

What we cannot do, because we do not have the authority, is to officially declare that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not Pope. The terrible impasse in which we find ourselves makes any human solution impossible.

Our task must not be to engage in the abstract speculations of canonists, but to resist with all our strength – and with the help of God’s Grace – the explicitly destructive action of the Jesuit Argentine, refusing with courage and determination any collaboration, even indirect collaboration, with him and his accomplices.

The Rejection of the Kingship of the Man-God

The evil of this world is intrinsically connected with the refusal to recognize that both in the State and in the Church the vicarious authority of those who govern emanates directly from the Hypostatic Union, that is, from the union of divinity and humanity in Our Lord Jesus Christ, King and High Priest. The hatred of the wicked against Christ the King was born in aeveternity, when the Holy Trinity put Lucifer to the test and he understood that he would have to worship and obey the Man-God, that he would have to recognize Him as King and Lord despite the humiliation of having assumed a human body and the infamy of the torture of the Cross. It was then that Lucifer shouted his Non serviam.

That cry of rebellion that earned the eternal damnation of part of the angelic spirits is found in the torn garments of Caiaphas, in the maneuvers of the chief priests and scribes of the people to send the promised Messiah to death, guilty of not having lent himself to the ambitions of power of the Sanhedrin. We find it in the theological delirium of Zionism, which since the Congress of Basel in 1897 has positioned itself as a sort of Vatican II of Judaism, replacing the figure of a personal Messiah with the advent of the State of Israel. That Jewish Council sanctioned the divinization of the State and its independence from the Divine will – the very premise of tyranny. The members of the modernist Sanhedrin at Vatican II acted no differently when, in the name of the secularity of the State and religious freedom, they trampled on the doctrine of the Social Kingship of Christ that had just been proclaimed by Pius XI. “Non serviam” had already echoed in the Germany of the heresiarch Luther and in the England of Henry VIII with the rejection of the authority of the Vicar of Christ, and it again resounded arrogantly in revolutionary France, with the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, and again with Liberalism, which takes away from the Lordship of God not only the dominion of nations, but also the primacy of the moral law over the rules of economics. We find “Non serviam” in the atheistic materialism of Communism, the false counterpoint to Liberalism that intended and fostered it in order to destroy the social fabric by means of class struggle. And today this infernal cry resounds with the horrors of abortion, euthanasia, gender transition, and genetic engineering, whose sole purpose is to erase every trace of the Divine both in man and in Creation, and to break away from the bond between man and God that is fulfilled in the Incarnation.

Until we recognize the inevitability of the victory of the Man-God as King and Lord of the Universe, and the victory of the Virgin Mother of God as Queen and Lady by Grace; until all nations and peoples bend the knee before the One Savior and Redeemer of the human race; as long as society and the Church continue to be held hostage by the enemies of Christ the King and His Most August Mother, we will not be able to hope for the end of this most painful trial, because we will not have made the necessary choice of sides that the Lord expects of us in order to make us sharers in His total and definitive triumph over Satan. Let us not deceive ourselves: those who stubbornly insist on reading the present situation with merely human eyes expose not only themselves but also the whole of humanity to the continuation and aggravation of this situation: for our battle is not against creatures made of flesh and blood, but against principalities andpowers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of evil who dwell in the heavenly regions (Eph 6:12).

Conclusion

Let the once-Christian nations return to the Faith of their fathers. Let dissidents embrace Catholic unity. May peoples who are immersed in the darkness of superstition and idolatry be converted to the Living and True God. Let the people who were once the Chosen People recognize the true Messiah, distancing themselves from the Zionist heresy. Let individuals, especially those who are established in authority, shake themselves from their slumber and recognize with confidence that there is no power except from God, because this – and only this – is the premise for the harmony of peoples, for justice, for peace. Let faithful Catholics realize that it no longer possible to passively defer choosing which side we are on, clinging to the illusion that the current crisis fits within any precedent, remaining submissive to the cloak of authority worn by one who speaks only pleasing things but does not speak with the authority of Jesus Christ. And if the Shepherds are absent from this general awakening of consciences, let them remember the Lord’s terrible words: “If these are silent, the stones will cry out” (Lk 19:40).

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Avatar photo

Brian McCall

With degrees from Yale University, the University of London, and the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. McCall is a member of the faculty of the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Mr. McCall became Editor-in-Chief of Catholic Family News in 2018. He is the author of numerous books and articles on law, politics, and Catholic Social Teaching and has made frequent speaking appearances at academic and Catholic conferences on these topics. He and his wife are the parents of six children.

Brian McCall

Avatar photo

With degrees from Yale University, the University of London, and the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. McCall is a member of the faculty of the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Mr. McCall became Editor-in-Chief of Catholic Family News in 2018. He is the author of numerous books and articles on law, politics, and Catholic Social Teaching and has made frequent speaking appearances at academic and Catholic conferences on these topics. He and his wife are the parents of six children.