“These homosexual networks,” he wrote, “which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc., act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire church.”
Archbishop Viganò is no stranger to stirring trouble in the Vatican.
A cultural conservative born into a wealthy family in Varese, Italy, he received the title of archbishop from Pope John Paul II in 1992. He later joined the church’s diplomatic corps, one of the traditional sources of power in the Vatican, which gave him access to much of the information he alleges in the letter. In 2009, he was installed by Pope Benedict XVI as secretary of the governorate of Vatican City State, a position similar to mayor of Vatican City.
Benedict wanted him to enact government overhauls, but Archbishop Viganò’s efforts in pursuit of that goal earned him powerful enemies.
In early 2011, hostile anonymous articles attacking Archbishop Viganò began appearing in the Italian news media, the bulletin board of Vatican power politics. Archbishop Viganò appealed to Benedict’s second in command, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who instead echoed the articles’ complaints.
Those appeals and protests, later leaked by the pope’s butler, became the heart of the church scandal known as VatiLeaks, which many church observers say contributed to Benedict XVI’s resignation.
Francis removed Archbishop Viganò from his job as nuncio to the United States in 2016, in part for nearly ruining the pope’s trip to the United States by giving papal face time to Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Soon after his departure, a criminal investigation into an archbishop in Minneapolis-St. Paul revealed a memo that Archbishop Viganò had written in 2014 in an effort to suppress a church investigation into alleged homosexual activity by the Minnesota prelate, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt.
from Trends A to Z https://ift.tt/2Lv27HY
via IFTTT
0 Comments