Mel Gibson’s Letter to Archbishop Viganò
The Vatican doctrine office announced on Friday, 5th July, that it had found Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò guilty of the canonical crime of schism and declared his automatic excommunication.
On 4 July 2024, the Congress of the
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith met to conclude the extrajudicial penal
process referred to in canon 1720 CIC against the Most
Reverend Carlo Maria Viganò, titular Archbishop of Ulpiana, accused of the
reserved delict of schism (canons 751 and 1364 CIC; art. 2 SST).
His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize 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 are well known.
At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo
Maria Viganò was found guilty of the reserved delict of schism.
The Dicastery declared the latae sententiae excommunication
in accordance with canon 1364 § 1 CIC.
The lifting of the censure in these cases is reserved to the Apostolic See.
This decision was communicated to the Most Reverend Viganò on 5 July 2024.
Mel Gibson has entered the fray expressing his support for Viganò:
Dear
Archbishop,
I’m sure
you expected nothing else from Jorge Bergoglio.
I know that
you know he has no authority whatsoever – so I’m not sure how this will effect (sic) you going forward- I hope you will continue to say mass & receive the
sacraments yourself – it really is a badge of honor to be shunned by the false,
post conciliar church.
You have my
sympathies that you suffer publicly this grave injustice. To me & many
others you are a most courageous Hero.
As always,
you have hit the nail on the head regarding the illegitimacy of Francis. You
express the core problems with the institution that has eclipsed the true
church & I applaud your courage in expressing that, but more than that in
maintaining fidelity to the true church!
You are a
modern day Athanasius! I have all respect for the way you defend Christ &
his church. I agree with you 100% that the post conciliar church of Vatican II
is a counterfeit church. This is why I built a Catholic Church that only
worships traditionally. You are welcome to come & say mass there anytime.
Of course
being called a schismatic & being excommunicated by Jorge Bergoglio is like
a badge of honor when you consider he is a total apostate & expels you from
a false institution.
Remember
that true schism requires innovation, something you have not done but something
that Bergoglio does with every breath
He,
therefore, is the schismatic! However he already ipso facto excommunicated
himself by his many public heresies (canon 188 in the 1917 code).
As you
already know he has no power to excommunicate you because he is not even a
Catholic.
So rejoice!
I am with you & I hope Bergoglio excommunicates me from his false church
also.
Bergoglio
& his cohorts have the clothes & the buildings, but you have the faith.
God bless
& keep you. If you need anything just ask I will try my best to help.
With
admiration & undying respect.
Mel Gibson
So Mel Gibson does slapstick comedy as well. Who'd a thunk it.
ReplyDeleteLike father (Hudson Gibson), like son.
DeleteHutton Gibson.
DeleteAnd yet Fr. James Martin avoids censure; instead he gets personal letters from Pope Francis justifying the Pope's comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd the German Catholic Church fiddles while Rome whimpers, losing 400,000 members last year while it messes around with its 'Synodal Way'.
Viagnó has certainly wandered off the deep end, but the Vatican's determination to throw the book at its critics while allowing manifold sins and wickedness to go unchecked is, as they say, 'bad optics'.
I don't know the all reasons for the Archbishop's excommunication but all Catholics do know that a priest must not give Holy Communion to anyone he is aware of who is in the state of mortal sin otherwise the priest commits a grave sin himself. If a VIP fronts up to receive Communion and the priest knows he is in the state of mortal sin then he has no choice but to refuse. Cardinal Pell refused to give Holy Communion to those he knew were in this situation. He was not excommunicated and hopefully one day will be canonised as a Saint. ....Cressida
ReplyDeleteLast Friday's press release didn't give details of what, exactly, Viganò had done that constituted an act of schism, but among other things he is said to have ordained a priest without being authorised to do so by the local bishop. That may have been the last straw, though describing Pope Francis as a "metastasised cancer" can't have won him many friends and supporters within the Vatican.
DeletePersonally I'm inclined to agree with those observers who say Viganò never fully recovered from some kind of nervous breakdown a few years ago.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2024/07/05/0554/01148.html#ing
Thank you Lain for the links. The German Catholic Church is obviously at odds with Catholic dogma. There is no such thing as a traditional Catholic. There are no loop holes for liberalism and no one not even the Pope is an exception...so those poor German Catholics are all still Catholics even if they have been excommunicated . They will always remain Catholics intrinsically but do not support a Church pretending to be Catholic. They will have to trust in the Lord, derive comfort from prayer. Goodness will prevail. The best thing about Catholicism is everyone knows or should know the rules.It 's easy and is applicable without exception. We were promised that the true Church will prevail in spite of being severely tested by Satan and it will....Cressida
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. The only thing that those of us who aren't priests or bishops can do is pray and trust that God (not us) is in charge. I think that's difficult to do in a cultural mindset that demands a solution for everything, but surrendering to God is fundamental to the Christian way.
DeleteIt might be enlightening to consider that what is happening in the Church is echoing -- and perhaps presaging -- what is happening in secular society. One of the problems with British society, for example, is that the civil service will flatly refuse to implement policy of the elected government if it disagrees with it. This is significantly different from the traditional Sir Humphrey attitude of the civil service, which was more about "guiding" the minister away from extremities, but ultimately biting the bullet if that's what he wanted. Since Blair politicised the civil service -- and the judiciary -- the elected body (and by extension, the electorate) has become increasingly irrelevant. The activists control all, and what you want really doesn't count. They know best, and you'll thank them for it later. In like style, the Catholic Church has been hijacked and run into the sand by the theological left, and people questioning the validity of Vatican II or the legitimacy of Bergoglio's papacy or that of the other pope's after Pius XII are barking up the wrong tree. Benedict XVI once famously pointed to the door of his office and said, "my authority ends there." That was because he was a weak man, albeit a good one. So, in different ways, were all the popes after Pius XII, including the current one. I accept they were all LEGITIMATE popes, just weak ones, and this is the important thing to understand. From the time of Pius IX to the end of Pius XII's reign, the Church was blessed with a run of remarkably strong popes, particularly Pius X. The Church reached it's highest modern peak under these men, but unfortunately, Catholics came to think of this as the default position. It was from this that the modern -- entirely non-doctrinal -- idea that he pope is chosen by the Holy Spirit came. He isn't. He's chosen by the cardinals, and they're politicians to a man. Ferrets in a sack is a good image of the conclave. The Holy Spirit may be the guard rail, preventing the Church ultimately careering off the cliff, but the trip up and down the mountain can still be pretty hairy.
ReplyDeleteVatican II was a legitimate council, and since it didn't change one jot or tittle of doctrine, there is no need to try to undermine its legitimacy. In fact, it's counterproductive. Likewise, the popes from John XXIII on are all legitimate, including the current one. It's not only wrong to say otherwise, it's stupid to try to argue from that perspective. They're legitimate, but they're weak, and that's where the civil service analogy comes in. The Church, like the state, is filled with people -- such as Lain's friends, James Martin and the German bishops -- who just "know better" than a two-thousand year old magisterium. Other examples would be the Cardinale brothers in Nicaragua, or the liberation theologians in South America. They can't actually change doctrine, so they "refocus" the faithful. (Continued below)
(Continued from above) If you're old enough, you may remember when the American illusionist David Copperfield apparently made the Statue of Liberty disappear. It's a bit like that. What Copperfield actually did was imperceptibly rotate the platform on which the audience were sitting away from the statue until they found themselves staring out over an empty skyline. But of course, the statue was still right where it always was, and if anybody got out of their seat and looked around the pillar that was now obscuring it, they'd have seen that. The magisterium is a bit like the Statue. It's still where it always was, it's just that the likes of James Martin are doing the illusionist's trick of focusing the audience's attention away from it and towards the emptiness they want to present. When you've got a line of weak pope's and a Church structure filled with people who "just know better," you're going get the kind of clerical activism which mirrors the judicial and civil service activism of the British state. Vatican II, for example, never authorised the mass that most Catholics attend every week, it authorised something much closer to the TLM, but the likes of Annibale Bugnini weren't having that because they "knew better," so we ended up with the Novus Ordo, after a suitable period of machination, sleight of hand and outright lying. I'm not saying I don't accept the NO, but don't tell me it's what the Vatican II bishops had in mind.
DeleteIn Jorge Bergoglio -- again, I repeat, a legitimate pope, just a bad one -- I hope we have reached the end of this swing of the pendulum. Nobody, even his greatest admirers, regard him as a deep theologian or a particularly gifted ruler. Benedict knew he was being played by the James Martins of the Church, but I don't think Francis is willing to admit this to himself, that he's their creature. THEY rule the Church, not him. I hope there's enough cardinals out there who see what's going on to start trying to pull it back in at the next conclave. It's possible that, even though most of them will be Francis's creations, they'll see this is not the path to go down. And neither is the one Mel Gibson is walking.
Good points, Bell.
DeleteYes, thanks again for your considered analysis, Mr Bell. Mel Gibson is certainly an interesting character, and we should probably be glad for any person of faith who has survived in Holywood (This Protestant doesn't claim to know much about the lives of the popes after Pius XII - or indeed before - but he is not convinced that John Paul II should be included in the ranks of "the weak"!)
DeleteI use the word "weak" for want of a better one. Perhaps "suitable" would be more apt, put that's rather an insipid word. It's paradoxical because the vicar of Christ needs to be colder than a polar bear's foot, rigid as a guardsman's back and unyielding as a car compactor. That's the nature of the job, and nobody's had all these qualities since Pius XII. John XXIII was "weak" inasmuch as he had a liking for being liked and didn't crush the head of the curial snake with the iron heel of the papacy as vehemently as he should have. Paul VI and Benedict were actually weak. John Paul's glitch, as it were, is that he was a mystic, an unworldly man who trusted those around him rather more than he should have. This was especially the case after the assassination attempt, which I don't think he ever fully recovered from. As for Francis, he's a pastoralist, a shepherd. That's fine in a parish priest, even in a bishop, but in the head of the universal Church? Should he be calling the Holy Family church, the only Catholic church in Gaza, every night at 7pm, as he said in a recent interview with CBS? Why not churches in Nigeria, where Catholics are being attacked and persecuted by the Religion of Peace? He can't do that because he's one man and he doesn't have enough hours in the day to call everyone who needs to hear from the pope. That's what I mean about needing to be cold, and I just don't think that level of personal concern is appropriate. Maybe I'm wrong, but he's not just responsible for souls in Gaza.
DeleteThey can't actually change doctrine, so they "refocus" the faithful.
DeleteThis is the key point. It's very hard to change doctrine, purely on an administrative level if nothing else; it's much easier to change practise. This is what has happened in the CofE - there's no need to change Synod's mind on (re)marriage, sexuality, and so on, when you can get enough people to simply carry on as if the altered understanding is true. Granted the CofE lacks the anchor of the Magisterium, making this subversion easier, but it should still serve as a warning to the Apostolic Churches.
This is why safeguarding liturgy and good catechesis is so important, both of which the bishops and extended hierarchy have largely failed at doing.