Having the badge of honor of being excommunicated from the Synodal Church, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has launched yet another scathing attack on the same institution and its promotion of disciplines at variance with divine law.
This time, His Excellency’s target was the recently concluded meeting in the Vatican marking the 10th anniversary of Francis’ controversial apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia.
Comments by Nigerian priest and theologian Reverend Professor Stanislaus Chu Ilo seem to have provoked the ire of His Excellency, prompting a blistering response to him on X. Chu Ilo had said during a press conference at the Vatican that synodality was bringing the Second Vatican Council to fruition.
Viganò immediately accused proponents of the Synodal Church of being in open rupture with Catholic Tradition. “Whoever declares that the Church ‘is moving toward the full realization of Vatican II and the Synod on Synodality’ is merely confessing what we denounce: a rupture, not a homogeneous development,” he thundered. “The Church is not a parliament, and Our Lord did not call for consultations.”
Viganò also seized upon Chu llo’s description of the Church as moving towards the full realization Vatican II. “Theology has no paradigms to change, because it has the ‘Deposit of Faith’ to safeguard and transmit,” he plainly stated..
The Dispatch
Invoking the First Vatican Council, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States then argued that Catholic dogma cannot acquire a meaning different from that which the Church has traditionally understood and taught, even “under the pretext of a better comprehension.” He continued his attack on the synodal process’ emphasis on listening and ensuring that everyone has a voice.
“The listening that saves is that of the Word of God (‘faith comes from hearing’ Rm 10:17), not the listening to the world, which has obtained our surrender,” he rightly explained. “The officials of the conciliar and synodal church call ‘paradigm’ what in the language of the Church has always been called error.”
Viganò saved his most righteous condemnation for Amoris Laetitia’s implications for sacramental discipline concerning divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. Even conservative prelates like Cardinal Raymond Burke and have acknowledged its rupture with Catholic tradition, going so far as to submit a dubia to Francis, though never following up after no answer was received.
“Trent anathematized whoever says that the Church errs when it teaches that the matrimonial bond is not dissolved by adultery, and that other marriages may be contracted while the spouse is still living,” Viganó recalled. “It established that whoever is conscious of mortal sin must not approach the Eucharist without prior sacramental Confession.”
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The controversy surrounding Amoris Laetitia, especially Chapter Eight, has persisted since its publication in 2016. Many Catholics have rejected its so-called pastoral provisions because they undermine established Catholic teaching, while progressives maintain that it represents a legitimate development in pastoral discernment without changing the doctrine of marriage. The topic was being discussed at Leo’s event in the Vatican this week.
Viganó concluded his X post by coldly stating “when the error concerns a defined doctrine, the Catholic Church has an even graver name: heresy.”
