Letter #108, 2023, Sat, July 1: "Rise up, O Lord"

“Under my personal patronage, the civil association Exsurge Dominehas been founded, which has as its social purpose “to provide assistance, support and material help to clergy, religious and consecrated laity who are in conditions of particular economic and logistical difficulties; to defend the unchanged and incorruptible Tradition of the Catholic Faith; to preserve and promote the traditional liturgy; to encourage the study and theological and cultural awareness of the immense religious, historical and artistic heritage of Christianity; and to foster opportunities for dialogue and encounter between the various associations, experiences or groups operating within the perennial Tradition of the Catholic Church.” —Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, in a press release published today, July 1, 2023, Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, released on various websites around the world (for example, here)

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Letter #108, 2023, Saturday, July 1: Archbishop Viganò launches an initiative “to support the unchanged and incorruptible Tradition of the Catholic Faith” and “to preserve and promote the traditional liturgy” (link to the website)

Today, another new, and perhaps pivotal, development in the “liturgy wars,” which are just one part of the larger struggle over the meaning and interpretation of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), that is, of the relationship of the Catholic Church and faith to the modern world.

Following the letter yesterday (#107) from Bishop Athanasius Schneider, 62, of Astana, Kazakhstan, concerning the old liturgy, retired Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 82, has this morning announced that he has created a non-profit entity under Italian law, named “Exsurge Domine” (“Rise up, Lord”) to raise funds to support traditional Catholic teaching and religious life.

His initial goal is to raise 1.5 million euros (c. $1.64 million) to support a convent of traditional Benedictine nuns in Pienza, Italy (the urgent need to support these nuns is evidently one of the key reasons Viganò launched this Italian non-profit).

Viganò notes: “This far, I have tried to meet their spiritual and material needs personally. The time has now come to organize a network of support and resistance to put a stop to this disastrous situation.”

But then Viganò also adds that his vision extends further: “My decision to support and promote this initiative is intended to be a first step in a wider action to defend the Catholic Magisterium, which today is gravely threatened by a Hierarchy that does not hesitate to demolish the Church of Christ in order to please the world and its instances of destruction and death.”

Viganò sums up:

“For our part, we immediately took action with a first urgent project, namely the construction of a monastery to be allocated to the Benedictine nuns of Pienza, persecuted by the Holy See and by the new Bishop because they were considered close to Tradition (here, here, here). We have already been offered land and a property that needs major renovation and adaptation. The expenses for these works, which began on May 8, the feast of the Apparition of the Archangel Michael and Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei, are quantifiable in the order of 1.5 million euros. These may seem like a large sum, but if everyone does their part, it will not be impossible to meet them.”

Then he concludes:

“Let us try to leave, amidst the desert of the ruins of this decadent and rebellious world, the sign of a Christian vision of society, so that posterity may recognize that even in the moment of greatest darkness the people of God did their part, did not allow themselves to be discouraged, and continued to build precisely where others had destroyed.”

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The Latin verse “Exsurge, Domine, et judica causan tuam” means “Arise, O God, and defend your cause,” and is the first verse of Psalm 74.

Exsurge Domine was also the title of Pope Leo X‘s papal bull, Exsurge Domine, promulgated on June 15, 1520, against the errors of Martin Luther. The bull censured 41 propositions summarised from Luther’s writings, and threatened him with excommunication unless he recanted within a 60-day period commencing upon the publication of the bull in Saxony and its neighboring regions. Luther refused to recant and responded instead by composing polemical tracts rebuking the papacy, and by publicly burning a copy of the bull on December 10, 1520. As a result, Luther was excommunicated in 1521. (link)

This was, arguably, the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

The words Exsurge Domine were also on the standard of the Inquisition of Spain. (link)

We offer below Viganò’s full July 1 Press Release (link), and the longer May 28 (Pentecost Sunday) background text in which the archbishop explains his at that point still-developing initiative in considerable detail (link).—RM

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P.S. Please also consider supporting this writing. Thank you. (link)

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Press Release

From Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

July 1, 2023

(link)

THE ASSOCIATION “EXSURGE DOMINE” IS BORN

TO HELP PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS WHO ARE VICTIMS OF THE BERGOGLIAN PURGES

The Church is going through a very serious crisis, mirroring that of civil governments: those who hold positions of power have shown themselves to be enemies of the institution they oversee and of the people over whom they exercise their authority.

This subversive action leads those who are not willing to accept the betrayal to become the object of persecution: just as the doctors who chose to treat patients during the pandemic lost their licenses and were deprived of their salary, so the priests and religious who they do not adapt to the Bergoglian revolution are being removed from churches, expelled from convents, and left without any means of support.

And what is most disconcerting is that the persecutions of those who are good multiply with impunity, while at the same time those who carry them out show themselves to be conciliatory and “inclusive” towards the enemies of the Church: heretics, perverts and those who are corrupt remain in their positions, indeed they are promoted and encouraged in sin and vice by the very ones whom Christ commanded to protect the flock from rapacious wolves.

On the other hand, in the marvelous world of Santa Marta, convents and religious houses must be sold in order to transform them into resorts or lucrative immigrant “welcoming centers.”

Or, more simply, they are sold in order to compensate for the millions in reparations that the Dioceses must pay to the victims of their corrupt clergy and the financial hole resulting from the disaffection of the faithful.

The persecution imposed by the Vatican – where Bergoglio’s protégés dominate with impunity – also manifests itself in disciplinary actions that violate the laws of the Church and the very purpose for which those laws have legitimacy: there are countless cases of placing Dioceses and religious communities under pontifical commissaries, of intimidating inspections, specious Apostolic Visits, removals of Bishops, while priests are suspended a divinis or reduced to the lay state whose only mistake has been not wanting to apostatize the Catholic Faith.

The recent cases of the Benedictine Monastery of Pienza in Italy and the Carmel of Arlington in Texas, which are added to many less well-known cases, are the confirmation of a deliberate will to distort and destroy the last vestiges of Catholicism on the part of the highest levels of the Hierarchy.

To this end, under my personal patronage, the civil association Exsurge Domine has been founded, which has as its social purpose “to provide assistance, support and material help to clergy, religious and consecrated laity who are in conditions of particular economic and logistical difficulties; to defend the unchanged and incorruptible Tradition of the Catholic Faith; to preserve and promote the traditional liturgy; to encourage the study and theological and cultural awareness of the immense religious, historical and artistic heritage of Christianity; and to foster opportunities for dialogue and encounter between the various associations, experiences or groups operating within the perennial Tradition of the Catholic Church.”

Exsurge Domine will eventually be able to become a Foundation, but it is already operating at an international level, engaging in the assistance of religious who are persecuted because of their fidelity to Tradition.

Anyone who shares these aims can contribute as a supporter.

A website has been activated – www.exsurgedomine.org – that I invite everyone to visit, where it is possible to follow and support ongoing projects.

The video in English with my presentation speech can be found at this link: https://youtu.be/3rQNankcvXU

In this spirit of true Christian fraternity and renewed unity in the bond of Faith, Hope and Charity, we can give an edifying example to our persecuted brothers and sisters, a warning to our unfaithful Pastors, and hope to our children.

Because it will only be holy priests, priests who are faithful to the Gospel, priests who are in love with Christ, who will rebuild tomorrow, but beginning already today, that which we have allowed to be demolished for too long.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop, Apostolic Nuncio

July 1st, 2023

Pretiosissimi Sanguinis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi

[End, Archbishop Vigòno press release]

ASSOCIATION “EXSURGE DOMINE” IS BORN

to help priests and religious who are victims of the Bergoglian purges

By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

May 28, 2023

(link)

In a healthy society, authority exists to lead its members to the end it sets for itself. The Catholic Church is no exception: she is a society endowed by Christ with a Sacred Hierarchy, which has the duty to shepherd the flock entrusted to her care by her Head towards the supernatural end which is proper to her.

Authority – whether civil or ecclesiastical – is always vicarious because it is exercised by persons who receive it from God, to whom it belongs. Non est enim potestas nisi a Deo: quæ autem sunt, a Deo ordinatæ sunt. There is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist have been appointed by God. (Rom 13:1), Saint Paul reminds us.

The State and the Church administer Justice, one in the temporal sphere in the name of Christ the King and the other in the spiritual sphere in the name of Christ the High Priest.

But what happens if civil and religious authority are hostage to unfaithful and corrupt officials? Quis custodiet et ipsos custodes? Who shall guard the guardians? (Juvenal, Satire, VI, 48-49).

An authority exercised against the purpose for which it was instituted abuses its power, and its orders become an act of oppression, its government a tyranny; especially when the subversion of ends and means is falsely presented as being willed by the people whom, in words, authority claims it represents, after having ousted God.

In doing this – as unheard of as it may seem – the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church has slavishly adapted itself to the State in shameful enslavement to the subversive power that holds control over both.

The deep state and the deep church are totally eclipsing both the State and the Church, usurping their authority in order to demolish both from within and attack their members.

Saint Pius X, from the very beginning of the twentieth century, understood that the war against the Church was no longer limited to open external action, but was expanding through a work of infiltration in order to demolish it from within, resorting to the strategy of the Trojan horse.

Unfortunately, the wise and severe precautions adopted by the Holy Pontiff in the fight against Modernism were soon set aside, in the illusion that a momentary phase had been passed, but in fact the Church was deprived of an indispensable defense.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, during the Post-Conciliar era, was among the very few who denounced the fifth columns of the Revolution which had penetrated into the sacred enclosure, and his words earned him the ostracism of a Hierarchy that was already compromised with the enemy, confirming how concrete and in the process of realization were the terrible words of Our Lady at La Salette: “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.”

If in those years the loss of the Faith was increasingly evident, in this last decade one wonders if the Antichrist is not now seated on the Throne of Peter.

It is not surprising, then, that those who will not obey a perverted and corrupt authority are subjected to a ruthless purge, first ridiculing their dissent, then pathologizing it, and finally criminalizing it.

It is no coincidence that the persecution suffered in the civil sphere by those doctors, who treated patients with effective treatments during the pandemic, is mirrored by the persecution of priests and religious, who as doctors of souls have found themselves – since the Second Vatican Council – suffering the ferocious and ruthless ostracism of an ecclesiastical authority no less corrupt than the civil one.

Every critical voice is silenced by those who – with the same impudence as their counterparts in civil governments – encourage parrhesia – speaking out frankly – with their words, but with their actions show that they consider good Catholics to be sworn enemies of this church, this pope, this hierarchy.

And of this dystopian society.

And this is not all: the persecution of good priests, religious and laity is accompanied by the exaltation and encouragement of those who are wicked: heretics, fornicators, perverts, corrupt individuals and thieves benefit from the favors of the powerful, show themselves with impunity in public or on social media without any call from their Superiors, are invited to conferences, concelebrate in the presence of Cardinals and Prelates, and are promoted to prestigious positions with absolute impunity.

For them, mercy does not even require repentance, while for those who are good there is no mercy, no indulgence, and no forgiveness.

Today in the Church there are hundreds, indeed thousands of clerics, priests, monks and nuns, brothers and sisters, religious and laity to whom a tyrannical and corrupt authority denies the sacrosanct right to be faithful to Our Lord just as all of our brothers in the Faith have been for two thousand years.

It is no coincidence that the “new church” defines itself as “conciliar” so as to differentiate itself from that which it simplistically calls the “preconciliar church.”

But by this significant distancing, it demonstrates that it acts outside and contrary to the one Church of Christ.

The “new church” does not tolerate Tradition, as Bergoglio again stated in no uncertain terms on the occasion of his trip to Hungary: those who are rigid, those who are backward must be considered as suffering from a pathological disorder and must be expelled from the Church. It does not matter if they end up on the street, without means of livelihood and without housing.

On the other hand, in the wonderful world of Santa Marta, convents and religious houses must be sold in order to become resorts or to be transformed into lucrative welcome centers that feed the Islamic invasion of Europe and the ethnic substitution theorized by the ideologues of the New World Order.

Or, more trivially, they serve to compensate for the millions in reparations that the Dioceses must pay to the victims of their corrupt clergy and to fill the financial hole resulting from the disaffection of the faithful.

And while the scandals and cover-ups of the Bergoglian court have dealt the coup de grace to the reputation of the Holy See – which never misses an opportunity to confirm its enslavement to the antichristic ideology of the globalist synarchy – only one fault remains unforgivable: fidelity to Christ, to His immutable doctrine, to His holy Law, and to His divine Liturgy.

There is only one social category or group of faithful who have merited Bergoglio’s assaults.

In these ten years of his “pontificate” the attacks on faithful clerics and religious have multiplied in an unprecedented and scandalous crescendo, without any reaction from the Episcopate, indeed enjoying the bishops’ substantial acquiescence or zealous collaboration.

The role of the bishops has been reduced to that of diligent executors of Vatican diktats, including the suspension a divinis and the reduction to the lay state of priests “guilty” of being resistant to the new course.

In recent years an increasing number of priests, seminarians and young people who feel called to the service of God in fidelity to Catholic Tradition have turned to me in search of help and support.

This far, I have tried to meet their spiritual and material needs personally.

The time has now come to organize a network of support and resistance to put a stop to this disastrous situation.

This is even more necessary at a time when seminaries, distorted both in discipline as well as in doctrinal formation, are receptacles of corruption and schools of heresy for the few who still dare to venture into them.

In addition, the Ecclesia Dei Institutes do not constitute a safe haven from the repeated attacks of those who exercise an arbitrary and intolerable blackmail power over them, to the point of using Traditionis Custodes to cancel the guarantees that had been given to them in 2007 with Summorum Pontificum.

There is thus a need for a solid and uncompromising formation for the priesthood, and one that is economically self-sufficient so as not to have to fear Vatican retaliation.

But there is also an urgent need for financial support for priests and traditional religious communities, because without financial means their apostolate is gravely compromised.

These priests and religious, who by the law of the Church are entitled to a salary and a dignified place to live, find themselves from one day to the next deprived of all material aid, and some bishops have even dared to forbid the laity to help them in their immediate needs, going against the most elementary Gospel principles of charity.

Bergoglio uses “charity” as an intimidating weapon to impose his will not only on those he persecutes, but also on anyone who dares even to give them a hot meal and a bed.

The directives of total ostracism issued by the Vatican against commissariat religious institutes are well known.

Indeed, they are worse than those at the time of the suppression of the religious orders under Masonic governments.

But without good priests there is no one who celebrates the Holy Sacrifice, administers the Sacraments, and preaches opportune importune – in season and out of season (2 Tim 4:2).

If this last spiritual bulwark were to fail in the onslaught of darkness against the Church, we should prepare for the worst.

Faced with the ruins accumulated by the destruction wrought by the conciliar sect subservient to Leviathan, a clear action is needed through which to give an unequivocal signal to those who use the Church’s authority and financial means to build the anti-church of the New World Order.

Many faithful, scandalized by the betrayal of the Hierarchy, do not want to contribute with their offerings to support dioceses, “pontifical” foundations, and ecclesiastical organizations that are complicit in this apostasy.

I therefore urge all the faithful of good will to give their assistance only to those who are truly working in the Lord’s vineyard, and not to those who are devastating it.

Each person will be able to contribute with what they can, and it is important that the urgency of this fraternal support be felt above all by priests and religious, who should have at heart so many of their confreres who are in difficulty.

For these reasons, just as in the civil sphere there are groups of Catholic citizens and families who have decided to free themselves from corrupt and ideologized state education through the establishment of home schools and institutions that are autonomous and independent – both financially and culturally – so also in the religious sphere it is necessary to provide for the establishment of associations of the faithful who help priests, seminarians, and religious brothers and sisters, protecting them from the embezzlement and doctrinal deviations of the conciliar sect, allowing them above all a dignified life and a modest amount of financial support, the possibility of responding freely to the directives of their upright conscience, and also providing them with legal assistance to challenge before the competent authorities the unjustified and persecutory measures taken against them by the Dioceses, Religious Orders and Roman Dicasteries.

I therefore have the honor and pleasure of informing you that for this purpose the civil Association Exsurge Domine has been established under my personal patronage, has been officially registered in Rome, and is already fully operational.

The Association’s president is a layman who has my complete trust, and there are several priests on its Board of Directors. This Association, as indicated in the Statute, will have as its social purpose – “to provide assistance, support and material help to clerics, religious and consecrated lay people who are in conditions of particular economic and logistical difficulty; to defend the unchanged and incorruptible Tradition of the Catholic Faith; to preserve and promote the traditional Liturgy; to encourage the study and theological and cultural deepening of the immense religious, historical and artistic patrimony of Christianity; to encourage opportunities for dialogue and encounter between the various associations, experiences or groups operating in the field of Catholic Tradition.”

Exsurge Domine may in time become a Foundation, but beginning immediately it will operate internationally, engaging in the assistance of religious who are persecuted because of their fidelity to Tradition.

Anyone may contribute who shares these aims and wants to support – according to their means – this work of Mercy towards those who, with generosity and self-denial, continue to live and preach the Truth of Christ, the Truth that is immutable and that no Pope – either true or alleged – can dare to tamper with, adulterate, or deny.

He cannot: because the Church belongs to Christ and not to the Pope, and Christ established Peter as his Vicar, not as a successor authorized to distort the Church and tyrannize her members.

My decision to support and promote this initiative is intended to be a first step in a wider action to defend the Catholic Magisterium, which today is gravely threatened by a Hierarchy that does not hesitate to demolish the Church of Christ in order to please the world and its instances of destruction and death.

In everything that has happened, in every place, we can read the same script under the same direction.

The plans of the conciliar sect, and the doctrinal and moral deviations of the Hierarchy that we have been witnessing for decades, are not motivated by a desire to meet the challenges of modern times, but rather by the desire to destroy the Church of Christ, to scatter her flock, to damn her souls by the plague of heresy, immorality, and sin.

We are not faced with the inexperience or inability of Pastors to confront modernity, but rather with their deliberate cooperation in evil through the usurpation of the power that Our Lord has given them for the glory of God, the honor of the Church and the eternal salvation of souls.

Those who still tolerate this betrayal of authority today become their accomplices and will have to answer to the Majesty of God, who shed His own Blood on the Cross for each one of us.

I therefore urge the Catholic faithful, but also my Brothers in the Episcopate, priests, and religious brothers and sisters (who are not yet ostracized) to support Exsurge Domine with prayer, sacrifice, penance and charity; which, as we know, covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8).

Those who today still have the privilege of having a church in which they can celebrate as God commands, a pulpit from which to preach sound doctrine, and a choir in which to raise the laus perennis together with their confreres, should consider that tomorrow they could share the same fate as so many “canceled” priests, unless they too want to apostatize.

There is a need for every priest to have what is necessary to provide for his basic needs (board and lodging, utilities, travel) and even more for the needs related to the performance of his ministry.

No less important is the collection of funds to be allocated to the formation of the many vocations that ask to grow and be formed according to Tradition.

And if Providence has granted some to be stewards of His goods, these riches can and must be used as Our Lord desires.

Those who have means, mindful of the evangelical precept, must remember that the more they have, the more the Lord asks.

For our part, we immediately took action with a first urgent project, namely the construction of a monastery to be allocated to the Benedictine nuns of Pienza, persecuted by the Holy See and by the new Bishop because they were considered close to Tradition (here, here, here).

We have already been offered land and a property that needs major renovation and adaptation. The expenses for these works, which began on May 8, the feast of the Apparition of the Archangel Michael and Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei, are quantifiable in the order of 1.5 million euros. These may seem like a large sum, but if everyone does their part, it will not be impossible to meet them.

If we look around our cities, we still see present the churches, convents, colleges, hospitals, and hospices that were once erected by means of offerings made by all Christians, each according to the means that Providence granted them.

Let us try to leave, amidst the desert of the ruins of this decadent and rebellious world, the sign of a Christian vision of society, so that posterity may recognize that even in the moment of greatest darkness the people of God did their part, did not allow themselves to be discouraged, and continued to build precisely where others had destroyed.

For this reason, I address my heartfelt appeal, so that each person may feel called to participate in this initiative and make their own generous contribution, so that this first project – and the many that will follow – may constitute an adequate and effective response to the travail of these times, providing for the protection and transmission of the Catholic Faith whole and intact, just as Our Savior entrusted it to us.

Two current accounts have been opened in Italy:

Bank: Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Roma – Via Sabotino 612, Roma

Account holder: Associazione Exsurge Domine

IBAN: IT19I0832703399000000026930

SWIFT/BIC: ICRAITRRROM

Bank: Poste Italiane Spa – Piazza Matteotti 37, Siena

Account holder: Associazione Exsurge Domine

IBAN: IT31V0760114200001065628511

SWIFT/BIC: BPPIITRRXXX

And a website: www.exsurgedomine.org

In this spirit of true Christian fraternity and renewed unity in the bond of faith, hope, and charity, we can give an edifying example to our persecuted brothers and sisters, a warning to unfaithful pastors, and hope to our children.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

May 28, 2023

Dominica Pentecostes

[End, longer May 28 text of Archbishop Viganò explaining his initiative]