The Vatican has excommunicated its former ambassador to the US, after finding him guilty of schism, an inevitable end for the firebrand conservative who became one of Pope Francis’ most ardent critics.
The Vatican’s doctrine office imposed the penalty on Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò after a meeting of its members on Thursday and informed him of its decision on Friday, a press statement said.
It cited Viganò’s “refusal to recognise and submit to the supreme pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the second Vatican council.”
The Vatican excommunication means that Viganò is formally outside the church, and cannot celebrate or receive its sacraments, for having committed one of the gravest crimes in canon law: schism.
Schism is considered particularly dangerous to the faith because it threatens the unity of the church. Viganò had created a following of like-minded conservatives and traditionalists over the years as he delved deeper and deeper into conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic and what he called the “great reset”, plus other fringe ideas.
Viganò knew the schism declaration was coming after the Vatican informed him that it was launching a penal process against him last month. He called it “an honour” and refused to appear in person or in writing to defend himself.
Viganò, who issued a lengthy public statement last month justifying his conduct, didn’t directly respond to the schism declaration on X, his usual forum. About an hour before the Vatican decree was made public, he announced he would be celebrating a mass on Friday for those who had been supporting him and asked for donations.
Viganò first rose to prominence in 2012, during the first Vatileaks scandal, when Pope Benedict XVI’s butler leaked the pontiff’s private papers to an Italian journalist to try to draw attention to corruption in the Holy See.
In some of the leaked letters Viganò, then the No 2 in the Vatican City state administration, begged of the pope that he not be transferred to Washington after exposing corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts that cost the Holy See millions of euros.
The entreaties didn’t work: by the time the letters were published, Benedict had transferred Viganò to be the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, certainly a prestigious post but one that took him far from Rome and out of the running to one day be a cardinal.
Viganò reappeared on the scene during Francis’s 2015 visit to the US, which as nuncio Viganò helped organise and arranged for the pope to meet Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who had refused to issue all marriage licences rather than be compelled to issue them to same-sex couples.
After the visit ended, Davis and her lawyers claimed the encounter with Francis amounted to an affirmation of her cause. The Vatican later turned that claim on its head when it released footage of what it said was the only private audience Francis had in Washington: with a small group of people that included a gay couple.
Viganò’s invitation for Davis to meet the pope appeared to put the two on what would become a collision course that exploded in August 2018.
At the time, the US church was reeling from a new chapter in its sexual abuse scandal: one of the most senior US clergy, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of molesting a minor and a Pennsylvania grand jury had issued a devastating investigation into decades of abuse and cover-up.
As Francis was wrapping up a tense visit to Ireland, Viganò published an 11-page screed accusing him and decades of US and Vatican officials of covering for McCarrick. Specifically, Viganò accused Francis of rehabilitating McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Benedict, and called on him to resign.
Francis quickly authorised an in-house investigation to determine who knew what and when about McCarrick’s misconduct.
The report, released in 2020, confirmed that a generation of church officials, including Pope John Paul II, had turned a blind eye. It largely spared Francis, who eventually defrocked the cardinal.
But the report also faulted Viganò for not looking into new claims against McCarrick or enforcing restrictions on him when specifically ordered to do so by the Vatican.
At that point, Viganò’s claims against Francis began to become more unhinged. He endorsed conspiracy theories about the coronavirus vaccines, appeared at far-right political rallies in the US and, eventually, refused to recognise Francis as pope.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
