Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 81. He will turn 82 on January 16. Below, three of his recent texts
“The family… is the place where that order is realized in Charity which is the necessary premise for the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” —Archbishop Viganò, in a letter dated January 8 for the Feast of the Holy Family (full text below)
“It is not surprising that the enemies of God also want to cancel his name, replacing it with parent 1 and parent 2, precisely to eliminate those blessed names, with which we can call Abba, Father none other than God, and Mother the heavenly Mother of God.“ —Ibid.
“American Catholics find themselves today in the impossible situation of being represented by a political class that is revealing itself to be completely incapable of representing and expressing Catholic convictions in moral and religious matters.” —Archbishop Viganò, in a December 20 Declaration regarding “the recent gala at Mar-a-Lago” (the home of Donald Trump near Miami, Florida (full text at the end of this letter)
***
Letter #15, 2023 Thursday, January 12: Three powerful letters from Archbishop Viganò
The past weeks have been crowded with events, emotions, transitions, celebrations, polemics, prayers.
We celebrated Christmas with joy, then learned with sorrow that Pope Benedict was suddenly “very ill.”
We approached the end of the year 2022, and the start of 2023, with hopes and resolutions, and on the 31st of December, we learned that Pope Benedict had died at the age of 95.
We were plunged into a mixture of gratitude for his life, and mourning for his death… of sorrow that he had confronted so many obstacle and that we had been unable to help him more, and of joy that he had “run the race” to the end, becoming an example of prayer and humility to all the world.
For four days the old Pope’s body, tiny, frail, grey, lay silent as well-wishers paid their last respects to him.
On the 5th of December was the solemn funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square.
There were even polemics surrounding the funeral, what was said and not said there, and what was done and not done, but I do not wish to speak of them here.
Benedict’s body was laid to rest.
And at that moment, on January 5, an epoch came to an end…
***
The end of an epoch
We may call it the end of the epoch of Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) and Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013).
We could say that the John Paul II-Benedict XVI Epoch lasted from 1978 until 2022, 44 years. The two worked together, talked and planned together, and one succeeded the other in order to keep more or less the same line, like two brothers of the same family, two spiritual in brothers (though they had very different characters).
Perhaps it would be better, however, to call the epoch that ended on January 5 at Benedict’s funeral “The Epoch of Vatican II” or “The Conciliar Epoch.” The epoch when all discussions, debates, decisions, and plans in the Catholic Church — and especially in Rome — revolved around the question of moving from the Church’s past (the pre-conciliar period, prior to 1962) to her future (the post-conciliar period, from 1965 until today).
We might then date the epoch more broadly, to the period of the lives of Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) and Pope Benedict XVI (1927-2022) — so, from 1920 (the birth of John Paul) to 2022 (the death of Benedict).
Or, as I said above, to January 5, 2023, the date of Benedict’s funeral.
So, from 1920 to early 2023… 103 years — almost exactly a century.
The 42 years before the Council began (1920-1962), was a preparatory phase, when the events and currents of thought after the First World War and during and after the Second World War shaped minds and hearts.
Then came the four years of the Council (fall 1962 to fall 1965).
Then followed the 57 years since the Council, ending a week ago with Benedict’s funeral (1966-2023).
So we have:
42 years (1920-1962) + 4 years (1962-1965) = 46 + 57 years (1966-2023) = 103 years
The “Epoch of Vatican II.”
***
Praise and blame
Now, with Benedict’s passing, that epoch is over.
We are in a new and different time, truly a “post-Conciliar Epoch,” a time in which we may begin finally to assess and benefit from the lessons learned in these past 103 years.
If that epoch wrestled (as it wished to wrestle) with how to make the Church more able to bear witness to the Gospel in the “modern” world(note that every age thinks it is the “modern” age, until its time too passes by), then it was a good and worthy struggle, though with mixed results.
Then we should praise the men of the conciliar age, and perhaps Benedict XVI chief among them…
If that epoch wrestled rather with how to change the Church, to alter its teachings and practices to be more “acceptable” to the “modern” world, then it was a misguided, unworthy struggle, also with quite mixed results.
Evil and unworthy because it is the unchanging witness, the unaltered faith, the same sacraments, handed down to us over 2,000 years of prayer and struggle and sacrifice, which constitutes the treasure, the mission, of each generation.
We are tasked to preserve and hand on what we have received.
And if Benedict XVI, whose funeral closed the epoch, finally understood this dialectic in all its stark clarity — as he seems to have understood, with his repeated, heartfelt efforts to explain that there were “two Councils,” the real Council and the mediatic Council, the Council that sought to explain the same faith in a new context vs. the Council which tailored elements of the faith in order to please a new world order— then he, Benedict, perhaps above all others of the “conciliar age,” should be honored and praised, and studied, and imitated.
***
These questions are at the heart of the intellectual and spiritual battle that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò — who will turn 82 on January 16, in four days — continues to fight, not with physical weapons, but in writings, with written words, exhortations and appeals, and in prayer.
Here below are three recent letters from the archbishop.
(1) The first is from January 8, and is a homily for the feast of the Holy Family. Naturally, this homily speaks about the family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus, but also about the attack on the family in this “modern” age.
(2) The second is from January 6, the Feast of Epiphany, concerning the coming of the Three Wise Men to worship the newborn King, and bringing him presents, representing the right ordering of worldly power toward the divine, toward God, and toward God’s son. Naturally, since that right ordering has been largely overturned in this “modern” age, the homily also speaks about the disorder of our times, and appeals for a renewed right ordering of human affairs.
(3) The third is a “declaration” from December 20, and is in some ways the most interesting of the three.
In it, the archbishop criticizes and takes his distance from one of the recent decisions of Donald Trump, a man the archbishop has supported in the past. But Trump recently made a choice that has perplexed some of his supporters, and Viganò in this third letter criticizes this choice.
This suggests (suggests) that, for the archbishop, in the United States and perhaps also in other countries of the West, some important truths and policies no longer being supported by any major party.
This means — it would seem — that the archbishop is saying that either these major parties need to be thoroughly reformed, or… that new, more coherent parties should be founded.—RM
ET ERAT SUBDITUS ILLIS (link)
Homily of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
for the Sunday in the Octave of the Epiphany
January 8, 2023
“And he was submissive to them.
And her mother kept all these things in her heart;
and Jesus increased in wisdom and age, and in favor
with God and with men.”
—Luke 2:51
Praised be Jesus Christ!
In the Octave of the Epiphany, the Holy Church celebrates the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, inserting this feast immediately after the manifestation of the divinity of Our Lord.
But why should we celebrate the memory of the Holy Family, a mystery of intimacy and affection to be guarded around the domestic hearth, precisely when the divine royalty of the Child King is shown, adored by the shepherds and the Magi who came from the East?
The reason is that the family — the natural one, certainly, but even more so the one sanctified by the Sacrament of Marriage, and to the highest degree the one in which the parents are the Blessed Virgin and the Patriarch Joseph, and the son is the Incarnate Word — is the place where that order is realized in Charity which is the necessary premise for the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
It unites the spouses in the hierarchical relationship which has as its model the love between the Head of the Church and his Mystical Body. It prepares children — in this “microcosm” which is rightly recognized as the “cell of society” — to be good Christians, valiant soldiers of Christ, honest citizens, wise and prudent rulers.
Without the family there can be no well-ordered society; and without the Christian family there can be no Christian society in which the Lordship of Christ is recognized.
In the family, parents exercise their authority over their children in the name of God, and it is therefore within the context of God’s Law that this authority is legitimate and can make use of the graces of the state to find obedience in their children.
And this potestas — recognized by natural law — acquires a supernatural dimension when it is inspired by the infinite love with which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father; a divine love, of such power as to be itself God, the Holy Spirit.
Just as man shows in his faculties — memory, intellect and will — the Trinitarian imprint of the Creator, so too the family is in some way a mirror of the Most Holy Trinity, because in it we find the creative power of the Father, the redemptive obedience of the Son, the sanctifying love of the Holy Spirit.
But we also find there the awareness of one’s own identity and traditions (memory), the ability to treasure them to face the present trials (intellect) and the bond of love between spouses and between parents and children (will).
When in the Pater noster (“Our Father”) we pray Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, we often do not pay attention to these words.
We ask that the Lordship of Christ be affirmed over the nations, because only where Christ reigns can peace and justice reign.
We ask that Christ reign because this is God’s will: “Oportet autem illum regnare donec ponat omnes inimicos sub pedibus ejus” (“It is necessary that He reigns, until He puts all enemies under His feet,” 1 Corinthians 15:25; see also Psalm 109:1).
But in order to reign in society, it is necessary that the governors and the subjects be good Christians; and for this to happen, the family is necessary, the “domestic church” and school for life in the civil consortium.
It is in the Catholic family that children are conceived, given birth, sanctified and educated, preparing them to be good Christians, honest citizens and future parents.
And it is in a misguided family — or in its diabolical parody of LGBTQ ideology — that they kill themselves in body and soul, pervert themselves, corrupt their children, causing their vices to corrupt the social and ecclesial body as well.
The epochal battle that we are fighting against the globalist Leviathan has as its aim — we know it well, by admission of its own supporters — the systematic destruction of every trace of the presence of Christ from souls, families and society, to replace it with the gloomy horror of the lordship of Satan and the reign of the Antichrist.
In this battle we are not only besieged by very powerful and unleashed enemy forces, but also by the fifth columns who, within the Church and even in government positions, support the infernal plan of the New World Order out of interest, out of blackmail or out of cowardice.
Abortion, divorce, euthanasia, gender theory, homosexualism and neo-Malthusianism are nothing more than tools with which to destroy society, but even before it the family, because in the family it is possible to realize that form of resistance to the dictatorship of single thought, thanks to which one can maintain one’s determination to courageously defend their faith and their identity.
It is no coincidence that, in the mass manipulation of the Great Reset conducted through the recent pandemic farce, the desire was to separate the elderly from their loved ones, parents from their children, grandparents from their grandchildren: the disappearance of these family and hierarchical relationships, with all that these relationships entail, was the obligatory step for isolating people, weakening them psychologically, weakening them spiritually, and thus being able to force them to obey.
On closer inspection, everything that this corrupt and barbaric world imposes on peoples is always oriented towards control and submission.
And just when freedom is exalted by shaking off the gentle yoke of God’s Law, we see the chains of Satan’s tyranny tighten around our wrists.
On the other hand, how could the Enemy love an institution — the family, in fact — made up of a father and a mother, who refer to the Heavenly Eternal Father who generates us to life and Grace, and to a Mother who is Advocate at the throne of her divine Son?
It is not surprising that the enemies of God also want to cancel his name, replacing it with parent 1 and parent 2, precisely to eliminate those blessed names, with which we can call Abba, Father none other than God, and Mother the heavenly Mother of God.
Nor is it surprising hatred towards the father figure, who is the archetype of God’s authority, so that even ecclesiastical and civil superiors are called fathers, and they must behave as fathers.
At the beginning of this meditation, I asked why the Church wanted to fix the celebration of the Holy Family to Sunday in the Octave of the Epiphany. We have the answer: the Holy Family shows us the model of the Christian family which is the necessary and indispensable premise for the divine Kingship of Our Lord to be made concrete in society, fulfilling the prophecy of the Psalmist, which we heard in the Epiphany Mass: “Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terræ; omnes gentes servient ei” (“And all the kings of the earth will adore Him; and all peoples will serve Him,” Ps 71:11).
Let us therefore invoke Our Lord, the Virgin Mother and Saint Joseph to protect our families, keep them in the Grace of God and enable them to cooperate with Faith and Charity in the plan of Providence.
If Christ will reign in them, he will also reign in civil society. Adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua. (“Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done.)
And so be it.
+ Carlos Maria Viganò, Archbishop
8 January CCXXIII
Sactæ Familiæ Jesu Mariæ Josep
Archbishop Viganò: Everyone will face God’s judgement… even the architects of the Great Reset (link)
“Even today we see the simple and the leaders of distant nations recognizing the Saviour, and conforming their private and public lives to Him, while world leaders prefer to gather in Davos for their globalist agenda, and the prelates of the Bergoglian sect think only of hiding their scandals, propagating synodality and encouraging the most unmentionable vices.” —Archbishop Viganò, in the essay below
Homily of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
on
the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ
January 6, 2023
“Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terræ;
omnes gentes servient ei.”
(“And all the kings of the earth will adore Him;
and all people will serve Him.”)
—Psalm 71:11
PRAISED BE JESUS CHRIST
This solemn day is sanctified by three miracles: the adoration of the Magi, the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Cana, and the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan.
These miraculous signs show us the divinity of Our Lord and His universal Lordship over the cosmos, over nature and over us.
It is no longer only the shepherds who are called by the Angels to recognize the Verbum caro factum, but it is the whole human race, it is all creation that the voice of God himself calls to adore Him, to listen to Him, to obey Him.
A Lordship that some recognize with humble Faith and that others reject out of pride.
In the Martyrology on Christmas Eve, we heard sung the announcement of the Birth of the Savior secundum carnem (“according to the flesh”) placed in history with a multiplicity of precise and detailed chronological references.
The Toto orbe in pace composito (“entire world having been brought together in peace”) that the cantor solemnly pronounces shortly before raising the tone of his voice to mark the historical reality of the salvific event of Christ’s Birth refers to the triple triumph of Augustus, author and peacemaker of the Roman Empire.
A human and pagan triumph, certainly; but which was intended to prepare the eternal triumph of the Rex pacificus (“the King of Peace”), the immortal Emperor, the unconquered Sun.
For this reason, January 6, established as a civil holiday to celebrate the human glory of Rome, was chosen by the Church to celebrate the undying glory of Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords.
In this age of apostasy, marked by wars and conflicts caused by rebellion against God, it is difficult to understand how the earthly authority of the Emperor could constitute in the plan of Providence the necessary prerequisite for the coming of the Lord.
What seems to us more “normal” — so to speak — is the ferocious and ruthless response of Herod, who in his mad attempt to kill the Child King exterminated the children of Bethlehem whom we recalled a few days ago in the Liturgy.
Life and death, peace and war, light and darkness, grace and damnation: we constantly have before our eyes the two great alternatives for ourselves, for our families, for civil society.
And it is Christ who stands as a point of reference, as a stumbling block, asking us to make our moral choice, recognizing Him as our Life, our Peace, our Light, our everything.
If not, that is, if we renounce this choice, if we wanted to declare ourselves neutral in the face of the battle fought by the angelic hosts against the infernal powers, we would still be making a choice on which our salvation and that of the whole world depends.
We see it today: those who do not take the field under the banners of Christ inexorably end up being allies of His enemies, stand by watching as the innocents are killed by Herod, and before the manger refuse to adore the Lord, all in the name of a perverted concept of freedom and secularism in which the sovereign rights of God are denied or silenced.
And yet, precisely in contemplating the mysteries of this Most Holy Day, the Church shows us the need for the Epiphany, the manifestation of the divinity of Jesus Christ; a necessity for which Providence does not hesitate to move the stars, if a star can lead pagan scholars towards the light of Grace and conversion to the true God.
In fact, the simple and faithful adoration of the shepherds, made up of a humble and poor interiority, was not enough: it recalls the act of faith of the individual, of each one of us, but remains incomplete for the fate of the world if it is not accompanied by the public and official adoration of those who hold authority on earth, since this authority is a reflection of the authority of God, the Supreme Legislator and Judge.
As the Psalm prophesies: Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terræ; omnes gentes servient ei.
It is surprising, somehow, that it is wise men from the East who pay homage to the Child God, while the representatives of the imperial authority are absent, just as neither the king of Israel nor the High Priests appear; who also played a decisive role in trying and condemning the Lord to death.
Present at the moment of death, but absent at the moment of life.
Why do we not see the Roman Procurator, Herod, Annas and Caiaphas, the officials of the Sanhedrin and the scribes of the people around the manger, as we contemplate Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar kneeling before the Child intent on offering their gifts?
The answer is evident in all its simplicity.
The shepherds adored Christ with the trusting abandonment of the simple, who has nothing to offer but himself and the poor things of daily life and his humble work.
The Magi adored Christ thanks to His miraculous manifestation in the course of the stars, and their human wisdom, their ability to peer into the cosmos, led them to the timeless Sun, because they too, with humility, knew how to recognize the birth of God in the world.
Both were illuminated by Grace, the former through the announcement of the Angel, the latter through the signs of heaven.
Instead, Herod and the High Priests, who should have known very well the Messianic prophecies preserved by Israel, could neither see nor believe, because their first concern was power.
On the one hand, the temporal power, exercised under the domination of pagan Rome and forgetting that the Jewish Sovereigns were vicars of the only King of Israel, the Lord God of hosts; on the other, spiritual power, exercised in what today we would call “self-referentiality,” that is, concerned to preserve itself and keep the people in ignorance.
This is confirmed by the harsh rebukes and severe warnings of the prophets, by the mouth of which the Lord reminded His priests of their duties, while they were busy lengthening the prongs of the forks with which they held part of the sacrificial flesh for themselves, or while profiting from the trades of the money changers and merchants brought into the Temple.
Deaf to Grace!
Deaf is Herod, who should have seen in the little Jesus the ratifying of his own authority; deaf are the High Priests, who should have recognized in Him the promised Messiah, the Desired One of all peoples.
Both, significantly, had preferred to submit to the invader, rather than bow to the One who holds in His hand the fate of the world and time. Non habemus regem nisi Cæsarem. (“We have no king but Caesar!”)
The present situation is not very different in this regard from that time.
Even today the civil and ecclesiastical authorities refuse to worship Jesus Christ, or do so only in words plotting for His killing, for fear of losing their power.
Even today we see the simple and the leaders of distant nations recognizing the Saviour, and conforming their private and public lives to Him, while world leaders prefer to gather in Davos for their globalist agenda, and the prelates of the Bergoglian sect think only of hiding their scandals, propagating synodality and encouraging the most unmentionable vices.
Both support each other and recognize each other’s legitimacy. Both see Jesus Christ as an uncomfortable obstacle to the pursuit of their plans for power and domination. Yet, as we sing in the hymn of the Epiphany, non eripit mortalia qui regna dat cœlestia. “He who gives us heavenly kingdoms does not ravish earthly ones.”
But if on the one hand the Magi, with their tribute of Faith, have been able to publicly adore the King of kings, having nothing to fear for their authority; on the other hand, the rulers who are rebellious and indocile to God, not recognizing the divine origin of the power they exercise, place themselves against His Lordship and also against their subjects, transforming wise and just government into an instrument of hateful tyranny.
This is how the prophet Jeremiah expresses himself against them:
26 For among my people there are wicked people who spy like lurking hunters, they set traps for men.
27 Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; therefore, they become great and rich.
28 They are fat and wicked, they go beyond the limits of evil; they do not defend justice, they do not care for the cause of the orphan, they do not do justice to the poor.
29 Should I not punish these sins? Oracle of the Lord. Should I not take revenge on a people like this?
30 Terrifying and horrible things take place in the land.
31 The prophets foretell in the name of lies, and the priests rule at their behest; yet my people are pleased with this. What will you do when the end comes?
Listening to these words of Sacred Scripture, we wonder if they are not addressed to the powerful of this world, to the members of the globalist elite and to those who serve them out of cowardice, self-interest, and obsequious complicity.
And to those who, established in authority in the Church to feed the flock entrusted to them by the Lord, abuse their power to govern at the nod of the prophets of the New World Order, who prophesy pandemics and emergencies of which they are ruthless architects.
“What will you do when the end comes?” the Lord asks.
Will you create new emergencies, new crises, new pandemics, new wars with which to keep the people subjugated?
Will you continue to exterminate innocent children, to render fathers and mothers sterile, to defraud the worker of his reward, to corrupt the young, to kill the sick and the elderly because they are considered useless for your own vile interests?
Will you barricade yourselves in your fortresses, hoping to escape God’s wrath and your just chastisement?
What will you do, servants of the Great Reset, when your masters have to flee into their lairs and hide in the bowels of the earth?
Do you think you can sell yourself to a new owner as you have done so far?
Poor, miserable, deluded ones.
The terrible day of the Lord will come for everyone, and also for you: first with the particular Judgment, and then with the universal Judgment.
If earthly justice stands idly by and watches your crimes passively because it is subservient to you, Divine Justice will instead be inexorable and terrible, so that your public sins against the Majesty of God and against the man whom He created in His image and likeness, and whom He redeemed with His own Blood, do not go unpunished.
And if our poor strength fails to overcome your conspiracies, know that each one of us, every faithful one of the Holy Church, every single good soul is praying, fasting, and doing penance, asking for the intervention of the Lord, the King of the Nations, whom you refuse to recognize, adore, and serve.
What will you do when the end comes?
On this day of the Epiphany, when we celebrate the public manifestation of the divine kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the public tribute of the Magi to His universal and eternal Lordship, let us also renew our offering.
It is a poor and miserable offering, because it comes from us who have nothing but what Providence has granted us.
And yet it is a precious offering, if presented by Our Lady, Mary Most Holy, the Queen Mother who is our Advocate at the Throne of the Son.
It is an infinite offering when it rises to the Majesty of the Father through the hands of the pure and holy Victim, the High Priest, the Eternal Pontiff who renews the Sacrifice of the Cross in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Let us place our penances at the foot of the altar, so that they may become the gold of kings; our prayers, that they may ascend to heaven like the incense that priests burn to God; and our fasts, so that the Holy Mass may convert them into the myrrh of sacrifice.
And we ask the Child King to convert those who hold authority both in civil society and in the Church, who find themselves today having to choose whether to follow the star to Bethlehem to worship Him, or to ignore His Birth in order to avoid His will and wage war against Him.
And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria, Archbishop
January 6, 2023
DECLARATION
of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
regarding the recent gala at Mar-a-Lago
December 20, 2022
By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
A large scandal has been created, as well as discouragement, upon learning the news of the gala event hosted by President Donald J. Trump for openly homosexual supporters of the Republican Party.
This endorsement of LGBTQ ideology is even more serious if one considers that, only two days previously, Joe Biden signed the “Respect for Marriage Act” which recognizes the legal validity of so-called homosexual marriages in the United States, in violation of the Natural Law and also the Law of God.
The Democratic Party is totally anti-Christian and obstinately determined to implement the globalist agenda of the New World Order.
On the other hand, the Republican Party is recklessly pursuing a minority of voters who are indulging in lifestyles that are contrary to the Commandments and to the common good.
American Catholics find themselves today in the impossible situation of being represented by a political class that is revealing itself to be completely incapable of representing and expressing Catholic convictions in moral and religious matters.
This causes voters to become disaffected, which is added to electoral fraud and scandals that are emerging about media censorship and the manipulation of electoral consensus.
Up until now, certain aspects of the political platform of the Republican Party were able to be overlooked to some extent due to the much more serious threat embodied by the Democratic Party.
But it is now evident that the action of the deep state has contaminated the entire political elite without distinction, even involving Donald Trump, who up until now seemed to be a source of hope for the future of the United States.
A nation that offends the Law of God cannot hope to be blessed by the Lord, and those who support sinful lifestyles ought to think of the Judgment that awaits them rather than pleasing those who are corrupt in a calculated effort to win votes.
This nonchalance in political action by Republicans is no less harmful than the open opposition to the perennial Magisterium of the Church on the part of Democrats.
I urge American Catholics to pray, asking the Lord to enlighten politicians of sound principles, urging them to fight with courageous commitment for the defense of the Natural Law and the Commandments of God.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop,
former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America
December 20, 2022
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