The Rise and Fall of Archbishop Viganò

[00:00:17] After his revelations about former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Vigano has become one of the most well known bishops in the church. Since then, he's used this platform to promote highly controversial views, leading even some of his supporters to question his judgment. That's what we're talking about today on Crisis point. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, you know what to do with that, like mutton, like button, smash it into oblivion. [00:00:43] Also subscribe to our channel. Let other people know about it. We really do appreciate that. [00:00:49] You can subscribe to our email newsletter, Crisis magazine. Just go crisismagazine.com, and we will send you our articles and links to the podcast, each podcast, to your inbox in the morning. [00:01:00] Also, before I get started here today, I just want to note that this, if you're listening this live or when it first comes out, this Saturday, June 15, I believe it is. Yeah. June 15, 2024. I will be in Detroit. I will be speaking at the turning Point Action People's convention. There is a breakout session for Catholics, and it's a catholic action plan to win the election. I'm going to be speaking specifically about the state of the church, how it impacts the election. That's in Detroit this Saturday, June 15. I'll be speaking at 10:00 a.m. live. Great speakers at the convention itself, President Trump being the biggest one, obviously, Vivek Ramaswamy will be there. Candace Owens will be there. Other conservative types will be there, but I'll be there. So if you can, if you're in the Detroit area, you can make it Detroit area, sign up, and I will see, and you do see me there, please come up and talk to me. Let me know that you know who I am and you've listened to the podcast or you read crisis or whatever the case, maybe. I always enjoy actually meeting people in real life who follow the podcast or who read Crisis magazine. [00:02:08] Okay, so let's get started then, with what we're going to talk about today. And I know this one's going to be a bit controversial, especially with the fact that a lot of crisis readers, a lot of followers of this podcast, are likely fans of Archbishop Vigano. And so I understand that. And the fact is, we're living in an era where faithful Catholics are desperate for not just good bishops, but bold bishops, bishops who are willing to speak out, bishops like Bishop Strickland, Bishop Schneider, and like Bishop Vigano has been in the past. And so I understand that we very much want our bishops to be bold and speak out. We have so few of them. And so it might seem a bit odd that I would. That would single out one of them for criticism. But I do think at the same time that we need to be vigilant about these things, and we can't develop cult of personalities. [00:03:06] If you talk to somebody like a bishop Snyder, he would never want a cult of personality behind him. Neither would Bishop Strickland. I've never talked to Archbishop Vigano, so I can't say that about him personally. I'm just saying, though, that there is that danger in our kind of media dominated, celebrity dominated world, that we turn people who are on our side, so to speak, into celebrities who then can do no wrong. And I think that's dangerous to do. Our only one that we follow unreservedly is Jesus Christ. And so he's the only one that is beyond criticism. Obviously, our blessed mother is beyond criticism as well. And so we want to make sure that we always focus on Jesus Christ on the good of his church, not on, on personalities in the church. And that includes me, includes lay people as well, who are, quote unquote personalities or whatever. [00:03:54] Okay. So I want to go through a little bit of a history of Archbishop Vigano, because I do think what happens is over time, people start to kind of forget the details of what happened. Like, I'll hear people today say, like, Vigano is the one who revealed what happened about McCarrick, and that's actually not true. And so I think things kind of get conflated and get confused. So I want to go through a bit of Archbishop Vigano's history and how he got to where he is today. So he's an Italian. He was ordained in 1968, the year before Pope Francis was ordained a priest, actually consecrated bishop in 1992. Most of his career has been in a diplomatic capacity for the Vatican. That's been his primary occupation has been as a diplomat in different diplomatic capacities for the Vatican. He also has worked with the Vatican finances. He actually is the one who helped turn the Vatican budget deficit into a surplus under Pope Benedict. He's also the one who warned Pope Benedict that there was financial corruption going on in the Vatican. That later turned out to, of course, be true. So even before he became kind of famous in the church, he was already kind of trying to be the whistleblower for things going on, in this case with financial corruption in the church. To Pope Benedict, he was the, what he's probably best known for as when he was active in the church, he was the apostolic nuncio to the US. It's basically like the Vatican ambassador us from 2011 to 2016. I think I remember one year I was at the March for life. I went to the mass beforehand in the Verizon center, the youth mass, uh, with my kids. And I think he spoke at it. I think he came and spoke at it one year that I was there, at least, um, during his time in office, so to speak. His apples like nuncio before that, it was relatively, um, under the. His work was relatively under the radar, which, for a diplomat, that means you're doing a good job. If you're well known as a diplomat, that probably means you're not doing a very good job. And so he really did kind of stay under the radar. Now, there are some controversies surrounding him from his time. There are some people who have charged that he knew about some abuse that he didn't, that he didn't talk about, that he took some financial, like, payments from bishops that were kind of to keep quiet about their. Their problems and things like that. [00:06:20] And they may or may not be true. I've looked into him myself a little bit. None of them seem to be like a smoking gun, that he was like some corrupt bishop or something like that. I don't think that's the case. I think it's more a matter of he probably just was kind of doing the job like everybody he's done before, and he did do some good things as well, as far as, like I said, beyond just being a good diplomat. Like I said, he spoke out against financial corruption in the Vatican. And as we'll see, he did tell Pope Francis about things going on in the church as it relates to Cardinal McCarrick at the time. So that's kind of him up to 2018. I would be willing to bet that if you surveyed most Catholics in America in the beginning of 2018, do you know who Archbishop Vigano is? Very few would. Only the closest church watchers would kind of know who he is. And so, like I said, that's not a bad thing for a diplomat. That's probably a good thing in a lot of ways. But, of course, he became famous overnight. So let's kind of lead up to what made him famous. So in May of 2018, Cardinal Dolan of New York is actually the first one who brought out into the public there are some charges against. There's some accusations against Cardinal McCarrick of the nature of abusing seminarians and others and being at least inappropriate with seminarians. And so this is what started the whole investigation, which I think sometimes we forget those Cardinal Dolan, that really was the one who broke everything, who at least got it to a point where it's like, okay, now we'll take this seriously because we all know now that lots of people in the church knew about McCarrick's monstrous behavior for years and did nothing. And Dolan was the first to kind of say, okay, yeah, there's something here. We need to, we need to investigate that. And so it did. They did. And in fact, Cardinal McCarrick was removed from the College of Cardinals, from the cardinal in June of 28, I'm sorry, July 2018. [00:08:22] He's ordered to a life of prayer and penance in June of 2018. So at this point, you know, has not released anything about McCarrick at this point. So McCarrick has already been sent to a life of prayer and penance. He is ordered, he is removed from the cardinalate at this point. He had not yet been laicized, though, at this point. So clearly, I think people who remember it well remember this is what every Catholic was talking about for months. The summer of shame, people call it from May of 2018 through till the fall. This is almost all we talked about on social media. And that's all because it was just so awful. Because what was awful about it was, first of all, you have literally one of the most powerful people in the entire catholic church who was doing these horrific things. And, but what made it even extra horrific was that it became well known, at least believed that lots of people knew about it. But until August of 2018, there was nobody willing to come out and say, yes, this person knew about it, or this person knew about that person knew about it. That's something that had not happened yet. [00:09:29] Even though it was like an open secret, nobody was going to say, okay, but so and so knew about it. And that's what vegan o did. That's what Archbishop Bishop Vigano did. Here is one, a high ranking official who was the absent nuncio, United States. So he knows all the bishops, United States. He interacts with them. He knows what's going on in the american church. And he comes out and says, yes, we did know about it. And I, in fact, told the pope about it. I mean, that was just an earthquake in the church because he basically said, I told Pope Francis because basically he then told kind of what had happened that Pope Benedict knew about or at least knew of the accusations against McCarrick when he was pope. And he told McCarrick, go away. He didn't publicly put him under investigation like that. He basically said, you need to shut your mouth. You need to be quiet. You need to go away and don't do anything publicly anymore. And McCarrick did some, but he did kind of go away a little bit. And then when Francis became pope in 2013, McCarrick was rehabilitated. He came back to being in good graces with the Vatican. He was doing work for the pope and he was a close collaborator with the pope. [00:10:40] Vigano said Francis knew about the accusations against McCarrick, and yet he still elevated McCarrick into these high levels of trust in the church again after, after Benedict had left him out in the cold. He also accused other high ranking people in the church. He said Cardinal Wuerl, Donald Worl, who was the, at the time, the cardinal archbishop of Washington, DC, he was a successor of Cardinal McCarrick in DC. He said he knew about it and did nothing. And in fact, in that first letter, Bigono called on all these people to resign. But he also called on Francis himself to resign. [00:11:17] And so this was, I mean, this was startling. This was, this was the highest ranking person in the church to break ranks and say, okay, it is as bad as you people think it is, and I'm going to show you. And he did is he gave firsthand information. [00:11:31] He said, I know this to be true. I mean, a lot of times he said, I personally said this to Pope Francis, for example. [00:11:39] And so it was, frankly, it was shocking. [00:11:42] And so, of course, he faced strong opposition from the Vatican and from their lackeys. People tried to discredit him. People tried to say, oh, he's crazy, or this didn't really happen. Pope Francis did like, oh, yeah, you know, he basically blew it off, kind of like, you know, you can come your own conclusions, but we all know he's crazy. And so this was August of 2018, like I said. And then interestingly, Vigano went into hiding, which was a very, I mean, frankly, it was odd. He basically suggested that his life was in danger from forces in the Vatican, forces that would be opposed to what he's doing. And so it was, he's still in hiding to this day. It's six years later. He still is basically in hiding. He does not go out and speak publicly. He does not. Nobody knows exactly. I mean, some people know, but it's not public knowledge where he lives or anything like that. And so he basically said this was because his life was in danger if he was public. And so the immediate kind of backlash or the immediate response immediately after this is that first Vigano, was he released a few more letters defending himself, also continuing to reveal that there are deep corruption in the church and. But he did back off his call for Pope Francis to resign. He didn't really say Pope Francis should resign anymore, but he basically did continue to give. He. I think he put another letter in September, another letter in October. I think there's three major letters, if I remember correctly. [00:13:15] Now, the thing is, is almost everything that he revealed became true? I mean, essentially has become. Been verified as true? Somebody asked, when was Vigano's last public appearance? I'm not sure, but I don't think he's had one since 2018. He's had a few video conferences. He's had interviews with people, but an actual public appearance where he speaks in front of people live, I don't think he's had one since 2018. I mean, that's my guess. If somebody knows of an example where he has let me know, put in the chat or something. But to my knowledge, I don't think he has had even one. [00:13:51] But in 2020, the Vatican released a report that, of the whole McCarrick situation that essentially affirmed the major accusations of Egano while acting like Pope Francis had nothing to do with it, which it was so obviously a cover. Like, you know, okay, we're gonna act like we really care about this. Like, yeah, the mistakes were made, but we're not gonna throw the actual current pope under the bus. I think that was obvious. So essentially what he was doing during this time was very much confirmed to be true, verified to be accurate. And also a thing to note is, if you read those letters, the tone is measured. I mean, it's hard words, but the tone is measured. And it's. It's got one focus and one focus only. Fighting corruption in the church. [00:14:38] That's what he came to do. Essentially. He was like, I'm going to fight corruption. And he did suggest even that more revelations were on the way. You know, he revealed all this about surrounding McCarrick, but that other things, he knew of other things that would eventually be revealed. And that's. That's kind of where what happened in 2018 and o basically his status by, at that point, over the next, like, year or two was that essentially that he was highly respected by all faithful Catholics and those who are fighting against corruption in the church, they saw him as kind of our leading guy to fight corruption in the church. We knew since at least 2002. A lot of people knew even before then, like, especially traditional Catholics, but a lot of people knew there was corruption before that. But especially since 2002, that there was a lot of deep corruption in the church, and we saw vegan o as, and I do say we because I'm one of them, as kind of our warrior, our fighter against that corruption. He would reveal what's going on. He would let it come out into the light so all the darkness could be pushed aside and we could get rid of all the corruption, the corrupt bishops and others in the church that were causing so much strain on the church and causing the loss of souls, frankly. [00:16:03] And so he was seen as a hero by many, including me. This is 2018. 2019. [00:16:10] What's interesting is, is that I think if you ask us, in 2018, okay, what would vegano be doing six years later? I don't think it would be what he ended up doing. [00:16:20] Essentially what happened was that Viggo be Vigano. Sorry, I apologize for the mispronunciation. Vigano became a catholic commentator. [00:16:28] Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a catholic commentator. I clearly don't have a problem with catholic commentators. [00:16:36] However, I mean, he did this. He started making declarations, open letters, you know, getting interviewed, things like this. He became a catholic commentator. And like I said, I don't think being a catholic commentary is bad. Commentary is bad. Obviously, I'm one of them, but I actually don't think it's probably the role of a bishop, really, primarily isn't to be a catholic commentator. I don't think that's. That's the most appropriate use of their time. Now, the things he commented on. Now, here's the thing, though. If his commentary was simply on corruption in the church, that would be one thing, because he's kind of. He was. Became kind of the expert in it. He knew of corruption directly, but he didn't reveal more corruption. Since those initial revelations back in 2018, he has actually not given one iota of actual definite evidence or proof of corruption in the church since then. [00:17:31] I'm going to repeat that. Since 2018, since his initial revelations, he actually hasn't revealed anything new. He hasn't said, okay, actually, this bishop knew this, that bishop knew that this priest was doing that, hasn't done any of that. [00:17:47] And I'm not saying he promised that he would have a bunch of more names, but he, it definitely seemed, everybody seemed to think that that's what he was going to do, was he's going to continue to reveal things going into happening in the church, but he didn't actually do it. He started commenting on various things going on. Like, for example, in 2020, he talked a lot about COVID about what was going on with COVID how it's connected to the great reset crowd, how it's connected to a globalist conspiracy, the problems with it. And here's the thing. He's mostly right. I'm not saying he was actually wrong. What he said in what he said. [00:18:19] He also talked a lot about the great reset, about the great reset crowd. He talked about the deep state and then the deep church. He started using those terms a lot more, talking about the deep state and the deep church. He talked a lot about globalist conspiracy. [00:18:33] Again, I'm not saying he was necessarily wrong. I do think some of the things might have been a little bit beyond, like, what we could actually know. But at the same time, I don't think. I'm not saying he was, on a whole, he was not wrong. [00:18:48] He, um. He. He also talked a lot about Vatican II started. Now, this is something that was new. He started really going after Vatican II. [00:18:56] And remember, he had been a career diplomat, a career, you know, bishop and priest in the church, in the Novus Ordo church. I mean, I don't like really using that term, but you know what I mean. It was. He wasn't a traditionalist. He was not talking about traditional. He did not celebrate traditional en masse. He wasn't like a traditionalist critic of the church or anything like that. He was just a regular bishop until 2018. Now, he started critiquing Vatican II. Again, I'm not saying he was wrong in his criticisms. I think a lot of them were spot on. [00:19:26] He also becomes much more and more traditional latin mass. Pro traditional latin mass. He spoke against tradition as custodus. Again, I'm supportive of that. [00:19:36] But he wasn't like that before. He also. This is something. If you go through his writings from 2018 until today, you notice he gets much harsher and harsher about Pope Francis. His language changes. He talks a lot about Francis being part of a globalist cabal. [00:19:56] And one thing that I notice is interesting is if you look at his writings from 2018 till today, he actually goes from calling him Francis mostly to Bergoglio. Now, I understand that in Italy, it's not uncommon to call the pope by their actual given last name. You would hear Papa rat singer or Papa Wotiwa, Papa Bergoglio. So I'm not saying that that was like, that's it. But if you notice in his early writings, he talks about Pope Francis. He doesn't actually call him Bergoglio very much. And he starts to more and more, until eventually, by about 2022, I think he doesn't refer him ever as Francis anymore. In fact, he doesn't even call him pope anymore. He just calls him Bergoglio. He talks about the church of Bergoglio. [00:20:44] And I think that. I think that there's something to that. I don't think that's just like a. [00:20:49] Just a random thing. [00:20:51] And so I do think that he is, you know, you could tell the trajectory he was going. [00:20:58] His anti Francis talk became very much more and more directed towards really much harsher in what they said about what he said about Francis, or as he called him, Bergoglio. And like I said, his language changes. And we'll talk about in a minute where I think that led him to another thing he did was in the 2020, he talked a lot about the american election. He came out very strongly for Donald Trump. Now, I voted for Donald Trump in 2020, so I'm not, like, anti Trump, but it was, it was actually odd, to be honest. I thought for an italian bishop to be so involved in the american election. Like, he had a. I mean, Donald Trump actually retweeted his letter, his open letter, vegan O's open letter, you know, praising Trump and basically saying Trump is the man. He, you know, he's going to be against the great reset crowd, the globalist conspiracies and all that stuff. [00:21:50] And so if you also read his letters, they become more and more apocalyptic. They become much more like there's darkness and there's light. And the side of the light inside the church of Bergoglio is on the side of darkness, and you have the true church, which is for in the light. And the great reset crowd is the satanic organization type of thing. So it becomes much more apocalyptic. Now, I'm not saying that we can't have apocalyptic language at times. I'm sure at times I do. But I do think there's something to be said for a more measured approach. And I don't mean by that a weak approach, a weakling approach. Let me give you the perfect example. Bishop Athanasius Schneider. [00:22:33] When you hear him speak, he has strong things to say. You know exactly where he stands. He's. He's very willing to stand up against things that he thinks are wrong, even up to including the pope when he's wrong. [00:22:48] But his language is much more measured. It's much more just kind of like, okay, here's what we do. Here's what's the problem, and here is the solution. Much more spiritual as well. Talks a lot more about focusing on our spiritual life. Bishop Strickland's the same way. If you listen to a podcast last week where I interviewed Bishop Strickland, you'll see this in his writings, much more focused on being spiritual, suffering, accepting suffering. Bergoglios is much. [00:23:14] Veganos is much more apocalyptic, a lot more political. And so I think you start to see this. And during this time, from, like, 2020 to 2022, he did start to lose a lot of his followers because of that type of language. That type of people started to be like, it's not really my thing. And I'll admit I was one of those people that I kind of started to be like, this isn't really my style. I wasn't. I don't get me wrong. I'm not saying, like, a lot of stuff he said was wrong. It just was like, okay. And so I didn't really criticize him at the time because I didn't think, you know, it's like, okay, this is not my style. But he did definitely start to kind of go down a path of very apocalyptic language, very harsh terms, very. Not a lot of discussion of, like, the spiritual life, but much more discussion of, like, these political great reset, you know, globalist cabal and things like that. [00:24:06] Okay. I feel like it was really 2022, that there was a shift from 2018 to 2020. A lot of good stuff. We saw 2020 and through 2022, I started getting uneasy. And I know a lot of people did. I know I was not the only way. A lot of people tell me that they felt the same way because the language got weird, like his involvement in 2020 elections. My mentions here, a little bit odd. You know, the focus on. On stuff that really wasn't about, you know, him involving corruption in the church, anything like that. But 2022 is. I feel like there was another shift then. And it came about first with, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Vigano came out with a letter about that, and it was very pro Putin. Now, people who have listened to this podcast know my views on this are. I've been called a Putin stooge. I'll just put it that way. I don't believe I am. I believe I'm just very much against America being involved. I believe Russia was provoked in a lot of ways, didn't justify the invasion, but they were provoked. So I'm not one of these guys who put a ukrainian flag in my bio, on my social media and thinks Putin's the next hitler. At the same time, though, veganism language was very much like, Putin's the man, and he is kind of representing the whole battle against the great reset crowd. So that was a little bit like, whoa, I thought that was a little bit crazy. But what really disturbed me about that letter is he references Moscow as the third Rome. I've talked about this on the podcast before, and I think I've written an article about it, too, or somebody at crisis has written about before. [00:25:51] Excuse me, but I think that calling Moscow the third Rome really troubled me because I know what it means, because I've read a lot when it comes to the Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Catholics about Russia, or Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodoxy in Russia. I have a certain. I have a love for it, to be honest. I mean, when I say that, I'm not saying I think they're right on everything. I just have a certain people, like, I'm very interested in english history. I'm very interested in russian history. And russian history, of course, is the history of russian orthodoxy. I mean, ultimately. And so I know a lot about that area. And as soon as I saw that third Rome reference, I mean, red flags just went crazy in my mind, because third Rome is a theological position of Russian Russian Orthodox, that the first Rome, actual Rome, fell. And by fell, they mean the pope became a heretic and the Roman Catholic Church fell into heresy. Then there was a second Rome, which is Constantinople, but in 1453, that was felled, that was taken over by the Muslims. And so the second Rome fell, and Moscow became the third and final Rome. And this is in the 16th century, they would say that kind of took over the position as the third Rome, meaning the center of Christianity in the world of the true church. And so if you believe Moscow is the third Rome, you have to believe that the first Rome fell. And if you believe the first Rome fell, I don't know how you can be Catholic. [00:27:32] I just don't see. Now, I'm not saying he was like Vigano at this point was saying I reject the Catholic Church. I don't think it was necessarily. I think there was a dichotomy in his own mind on this, maybe. But I am saying that if you really, if you. If you're calling Moscow the third Rome, you are giving a signal that you'd believe the first Rome has fallen long ago, hundred, a thousand years ago. [00:27:58] And so I do think that that that was, that was a first. I mean, like I said, I was troubled by his style before this, but that was the first time I was like, okay. His content, actually, really, that's very problematic because it makes me. It honestly thought he might come out as orthodox. He might just reject the catholic faith at that point, he didn't. But I did start to think that the second, there's three major things I feel like he's done in the past two years that really do this. The second thing, that was March of 2022. He came out with the third Rome nonsense. [00:28:31] In October of 2023, he prepared an address for the Catholic Identity conference, of which I was a speaker. This is Michael Matt's conference he holds in Pittsburgh. It's a phenomenal conference, by the way, sign up for this year's. You know, I just. I reckon I don't even know exactly who's speaking at this year. I just know that Matt Michael holds a great conference. So this was in Pittsburgh, and he had an address to do there. He wasn't going to appear, but in it, he actually suggests that Bergoglio, as he calls him, had a defect of consent. That's his language, defect of consent during the conclave, and thus invalidates his election. [00:29:15] Now, I know people started to try to act like, oh, he's not saying that he thinks Francis isn't the pope. I think that's nonsense. I don't know how you can read that letter that he wrote and not thinks this from October 2023 and not think that he believes Francis Bergoglio is not the valid pope, because his argument, he has lots of mentions about different things, of heresies and how of Bergoglio, and he talks a lot about the problems of Francis. Now, people have different ideas of why he might not be the pope, and he clearly seems to want to foster this idea. [00:29:50] And then he says that. That. But his main argument is that Bergoglio, Cardinal Bergoglio, his intention in being pope was to basically destroy the church, basically undermine the church, and therefore he had a defect of consent, which makes his election invalid. That was his argument. [00:30:10] I don't know how you could read that and not think that. He is saying that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is not the pope, not the valid pope. [00:30:19] And so. And that's why, by the way, he was not invited to give this address by Michael Matt at the conference. I mean, he. [00:30:28] Michael has a great video explaining this because basically what happened is he did a bait and switch for a vegan od. He told Michael that he was going to say one thing. He ended up saying something else, his address actually be something different. And that's just not cool to do to a conference. When you're invited to speak at a conference, you tell them what you're going to speak about, and that's what you should speak about. You don't all of a sudden change it. That's not fair to the conference organizers. And so Michael, at the last minute pulled him. And I think it was the right decision because it just wasn't. The convention was not about is Francis the valid pope or something like that. [00:31:02] It was about uniting the clans, frankly. And that would just been more division. So the point is, he gave lots of fuel to the set of a contest movement. Lots of fuel. The idea that Francis isn't the valid pope either. I mean, some people, of course, people who deny that Francis is devout pope have various reasons. Some would say there hasn't been valid pope since 1958. Some say that. That Benedict's resignation was invalid. Some say, like Vigano is saying here, that Francis election wasn't valid for various reasons. Some say he was validly elected. But through heresy, later heresy, he lost the office. So there's lots of different reasons. But he's giving fuel to it because he's basically saying, yes, I'm with you guys on this. And so he knows he never calls him pope in the letter. He only calls him Bergoglio, never says the word Francis. And he had stopped calling him Francis before. So I think this was something that he was leading up to, that he had thought over this for a while and had for a long time kind of not thought Francis was the pope. And this was his going to be his moment where he reveals this to the world. He's going to drop it on the CIC. Instead, he had to just put it in a letter on his website. So that was the second major red flag. I mean, that's like a. [00:32:15] Excuse me, at least to me, that is a. [00:32:19] When you cross that line, it's a whole different discussion. You're no longer kind of in the same discussion as if you think Francis is the pope. So that was a major part. So the third Rome language in March of 2022, the blatantly set of contest language of October 2023. [00:32:39] Then we had, and this is kind of what caused me to do this podcast. Then we had his tweet or x or whatever you call it, post on x of May 29 of this year, 2024. [00:32:51] Let me pull this up for you. He posts this tweet, and if you're watching this, you can see it has an image of Pope Francis with a rainbow, draped in a rainbow flag. Now, to be honest, as soon as I saw that, I'm like, that can't be real. [00:33:07] And it's a very good photo. Like, it doesn't look like it's fake, but it is. It's an AI generated photo. And I think that that alone is a terrible thing to do because it is bending reality. [00:33:21] Pope Francis has not draped himself in the rainbow flag, literally, like, hey, trust me, I've been one of the foremost critics of Pope Francis when it comes to how he deals with homosexuality. And he has draped himself, kind of metaphorically, in some ways, in the rainbow flag, sadly. But that's not the same as actually putting an image up of him with draped in a rainbow flag. So that, first of all, was just out of line. [00:33:44] Not Catholic, not charitable. I mean, there's so much wrong with that. But more importantly is what he wrote in the tweet itself. [00:33:53] And I'll put that up here for you. You can look at all. I highlighted the most important part. He says a lot of things about what's going on in the church, but here's the key point. And he says that he's talking about when he mentioned to Bergoglio, as he calls him, about Cardinal McCarrick, and he talks about that. He says, we mentioned to him, and he says that, like, Bergoglio remained impassive and completely changed the subject. When he mentioned that Bergoglio. I'm sorry that McCarrick had corrupted a generation of seminarians. [00:34:23] Then he says, this is what Vigano says. His reaction is not surprising. Bergoglio himself committed the same abuses when he was master of novices of the Society of Jesus in Argentina. And Argentina, as personally combined to me, by one of his former novices. [00:34:47] Think about what he just said there. He just states flatly, Bergoglio himself committed the same abuses when he was master of novices at Society of Jesus and Argentina. He is saying that Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, wherever you call him, he committed the same abuses that former Cardinal McCarrick did on seminarians. [00:35:05] He just states it flatly, like it's true. [00:35:08] And his his. His source is basically personally confided to me by one of his former novices. He doesn't even say it's one of his novices that was actually abused. He just says one of Bergoglio's former novices. [00:35:24] This is. I mean, really unbelievable that he did this. And I say this not because I think it's impossible that Bergoglio, Pope Francis has abused somebody in the past. I think it's highly unlikely. But I say this because I actually have gotten to the point where I don't think that's impossible of anybody to hear about because of, frankly, being beat down by the abuse scandals. I've come to find that if somebody is accused of something like this, I never think it's impossible. [00:35:55] I'm just like, well, I hope it's not true. [00:35:58] I pray it's not true. I might even think it's unlikely it's true, but I'm not going to say it's impossible it's true. I mean, the case of Father James Jackson, the fraternity St. Peter priest, I think should be a nail in the coffin of the idea that it's impossible for some priest to have done or bishop to have done something like this. So I don't. I want to make that clear. I'm not saying it's impossible. What I am saying, though, is that you just can't do what he did. You can't accuse the pope of abuse. Basically, state flatly unless you're willing to state proof. And I got in a little trouble because of my response to it. Here's my tweet where I basically said, you know, I call it despicable. [00:36:40] And I say, if you have proof, your excellency, I'm talking to vegan o here. Bring it forward, otherwise, keep your mouth shut. [00:36:50] Say, if you have proof, you're excellent, bring it forward, otherwise, keep your mouth shut. A lot of people did not like my language of telling a bishop to keep his mouth shut. I found that ironic coming from some of the people, from some people, people who talk about Pope Francis in much harsher terms. They didn't like me saying something disrespectful, so I'm not going to really listen to them. But I did have some people who are solid, good Catholics who said that probably wasn't the language you should have used, and I will take that criticism and accept it as I probably should have said something like, if you know otherwise, please do not make these accusations, or something like that. So I will accept the correction from my, from fellow Catholics that perhaps that. Keep your language shut. Keep your mouth shut is probably not the appropriate language I should have used in that case. That being said, of course, my intention of what I mean, what I was saying, I completely stand behind that. You do not make an accusation like that. Here's the key, is we have to have justice for the accusers and the accused. [00:37:55] If somebody, and I mentioned this at one point somewhere, I think it was on Twitter or somewhere, if somebody I knew came to me and said, father so and so abused me, I would urge that person, urge him strongly. Go to the proper authorities, go to the police, go to the diocese. Let them know, tell them exactly what happened, and let the, hopefully the justice system in both the civil and ecclesiastical spheres will take course and take care of this. [00:38:27] You know, I would not do, I would not go on Twitter and make the accusation, oh, so and father so and so is an abuser, as confided to me by somebody because that's not justice for anybody. That is not justice because everybody has a right to their good name. [00:38:42] You cannot make accusations without proof and hearsay. Just hearing from somebody is not proof. [00:38:49] Now, you can, for example, if that person goes to the authorities and they say, and they come to you and say, did so and so tell you that he was abused? Absolutely. Tell him. Yes, that he did. He told me about the abuse. He told me this about. He told me that about whatever the case may be. [00:39:03] But you don't just go into the public sphere like Twitter and just start saying this person's abuser. He, he basically said, he did say that Pope Francis is an abuser, period. End of story. [00:39:16] And his source is somebody who he told them he was. That is not what you do. That is not enough to just basically throw that accusation out there. And so I really do feel like this was another case of vigano just going down the wrong path and really out of line. I mean, it's just out of line again, because here's the thing, and I made it clear. I said, if you have proof, your excellency, bring it forward. [00:39:44] If he knows something more definitive than just somebody told me, if he can, if a victim is willing to come forward or if there's some other way of proof, something, you know, somebody who was there when it happened or, I don't know, whatever. [00:40:01] Yes, please. I want all of it in the light. There's too much darkness in the church. Bring it all out into the light. We have to do that. We can't just simply cover these things up. We've been covering them up for too long. I mean, I had, somebody wrote an article that basically accused me after this tweet of wanting to, of telling victims to keep their mouths shut. Now, anybody who saw my tweet or knows what I did, I've said in the past knows that's ridiculous. I don't want victims to keep their mouth shut. I want them to come forward. What I don't want is a public figure like Vigano just throwing things out into a tweet, an accusation. Because if we live in a church like that, where we can just do that, then all we, then basically what happens is anybody who doesn't like father so and so can just say, oh, so somebody told me he was an abuser because as soon as that's out there, you can't take it back. You can't take it back. It damaged that person's revelations, and so you have to. Reputation. Sorry. Damage that person's reputation. So we have to have justice on both sides. For too long, we had no justice for the accusers, no justice for the victims. We can't go swing the pendulum and have no justice for the accused because there have been false accusations in the past, and there will be continue to be false accusations in the past, and everybody deserves their justice in a court of law, either civil law or ecclesiastical law. We can't just be allowed to throw these accusations out like, okay, now Pope Francis is an abuser. Why? Because Vigano said that somebody told him about it. [00:41:40] And so I feel like Vigano, he gained a lot of our trust by his revelations in 2018. Rightly so. He became a folk hero in a lot of ways, and a lot of people were willing to give him a long leash because of that. So even during 2020 through 2022, when he started getting a little bit, like, odd and bizarre in his statements, a lot of us are like, well, yes, but I do think, you know, I do think that he, you know, he's done so much good. Okay, fine. [00:42:16] But that does not justify what he, what he said in the past couple years, calling Moscow the third Rome, saying, Francis, you know, Bergoglio, isn't the pope, saying that he's an abuser, just flatly stating it. Those things are just, you know, now you've lost the trust, to be honest, you've lost our trust. [00:42:35] I just feel like now, and I will say this, I want to mention this, some people have suggested, guessed, implied, whatever, that's actually not vegan o anymore, writing these things that somebody else who's basically doing this, I don't know if that's true. And I think they take it because his language is so different than, I mean, it's not a diplomat's language, I tell you that. I mean, if nothing else, I mean, he stopped being a diplomat, you know, five, five, six years ago. And some people think his more recent stuff over the past few years is actually somebody else writing this stuff. I don't know if that's true. I just have to assume it's under Vigano's name. Vigano himself has not come out and said, it's not him or anything like that. And we can't know one way or the other. And I do think that what he's doing now is that he is, he is harm, doing more harm than good. He did great good for the church six years ago. [00:43:32] A lot of things he said since then have been good. [00:43:35] But ultimately, I think that he's doing more harm than good. He's undermining the church through his talk of third romes and sedative and abuse accusations. [00:43:46] I also want to challenge him. I don't think he's listening to this. But why are you hiding? [00:43:53] You claim that your life was in danger. First of all, I don't doubt that there is deep corruption in the Vatican, and they do terrible things. [00:44:03] To my knowledge, though, no bishop has been killed outwardly. And so I don't know if he really ever was in danger, but let's just say he is. Let's say he's right about that. [00:44:14] You're successful, the apostles. [00:44:17] Why do you care if your life is in danger? You literally are a successor to a company of which eleven out of twelve were martyred and the 12th was banished. [00:44:30] And so ultimately, you need to come out of hiding. You need to speak up and be willing to speak in front of people and give proof for what you're saying. Don't just talk in these apocalyptic terms, but talk about, okay, x did this and y did that, or whatever the case may be. Go back to exposing corruption in the church. [00:44:48] And if you come out of hiding and something does happen to you, well, then you've done your duty. You can hear Jesus Christ say, well done, good and faithful servant. [00:45:00] I mean, those of us who are fathers and husbands, we have a natural tendency to want to not put ourselves in danger, because we know, we support our families. We know if something happens to us, our wife, our children will go through lots of hardships. Now, sometimes we might have to anyway, but for a bishop, I'm sorry, I just don't have a lot of sympathy for this idea that you have to be in hiding, because which of the apostles stayed in hiding? Yeah, they might go in hiding briefly to escape something, and then they go, and then they come out, they preach the gospel without fear, and they preached it while endangering their lives. And you're a successor to them, your excellency. So I think that, that I don't really understand why you're still in hiding. I mean, that's one of the reasons why our clergy are celibate. So they don't have to risk. They don't have as much to risk as far as families when it comes to stuff like this. [00:45:58] Okay, I've gone along on this. I know. I just want to kind of say this finally. I do think all this is sad. Ultimately, I don't look at Vigano as like a bad guy or something like that. I just think that it's more sad. I think this is a good question. Somebody just brought up in the chat, why doesn't the pope go after Vigano like he did other bishops? I do think that's interesting that he doesn't seem to have a problem with Vigano, with what he's doing maybe. And I think some of this is because what I was just about to say, artrusian Vigano undermines the traditional movement more than anything. He undermines it again. He was never a traditionalist before. He never promoted traditionalism before until after the revelations about McCarrick. And it's great. Hey, we're not asking. I don't have a gatekeeping. You're not allowed in the trad movement unless you have been this long or something like that. No, everybody's welcome. [00:46:54] But at the same time, it's not like he was a society of St. Pius X priest for 30 years or something like that, or in the fraternity or something like that. He's a newcomer to it. And I think, though, he's been associated now with the traditional latin mass movement, traditional movement. And I think that's for the worst because I do think he ultimately undermines not saying everything he's ever said is wrong. Like I said, a lot of stuff he said from 2020, 2022, a lot of it was right said in some odd ways. But I do think ultimately that a lot of stuff he said was right. But I think he's doing a lot of harm to Catholicism, generally to the church, but also to the traditional movement within the church more than anything. And so I hope that he kind of changes his tune. He stops, you know, kind of talking about some of the stuff he's been talking about is focus more on the corruption in the church and give name names, show, you know, tell us exactly what happened. Don't make accusation, baseless accusations without proof. [00:47:54] I won't say, keep your mouth shut. I got enough trouble for that. But I will say, you know, keep quiet unless you're going to really be. Give us proof of the accusations that you're making. [00:48:05] Okay. I'm going to leave it there until next time, everybody. God love.