March 30, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The Catholic publishing house Angelico Press just published A Voice in the Wilderness: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the Church, America, and the World, a new book which contains all of Archbishop Viganò's interventions, statements, talks, and interviews since August 2018, when he published his now-famous McCarrick testimony, until January 2021. Professor Brian McCall, the editor of the book, not only collected the texts, but also wrote an introduction about the archbishop and added helpful comments, in which he explains certain references or expressions used by Viganò.
When Archbishop Viganò published his McCarrick testimony in August 2018, he wrote Church history and in a sense changed the Church. Not only did he decide to put his loyalty to truth, to the abuse victims of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, as well as his love for Christ above the loyalty to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church – including the Pope himself – he also opened the eyes of so many Catholics about the true state of affairs in the Vatican and the world’s ecclesial hierarchy. He showed us how McCarrick was able to establish a network of homosexual prelates and priests in the U.S. and throughout the world, and he also showed us McCarrick's political dealings with dictatorships in the world, especially under Pope Francis.
To sum it up: he showed us how corrupt the Catholic Church in its leadership had become.
But he did not just leave us at that.
After awakening many Catholics to this ugly reality, the Italian prelate started to analyze the Church's history, starting especially with the Second Vatican Council and then reviewing its aftermath. And he does so while acknowledging his own acceptance, or toleration, of many of the post-conciliar changes in the Church. Now Archbishop Viganò sees that the Council tore open a wound in the Church that since then never healed, but, instead, grew wider. The Church lost her confidence in her missionary role in the world. She started to doubt herself and with it some of her teachings which, though not her own but Our Lord's, seemed harder and harder to defend.
Archbishop Viganò then also pointed to the grave changes in the rite of the Roman missal, and he made it clear that he considers the Novus Ordo Mass a dilution of the spiritual beauty and reverence toward God that is to be found in the Tridentine Latin Mass. As Professor McCall tells us in his introduction to the book, the Italian archbishop now celebrates Mass exclusively in the traditional Roman rite.
Many Catholics who had watched the decline of the Church's discipline, liturgy (guitar Masses and so on), as well as her moral teachings (and here, Pope Francis is of course the strongest revolutionary), received from this prelate insights and wisdom that helped them understand the roots of our crisis. The homosexual networks and the sex-abuse crisis are in a sense the symptoms of a Church who in human terms has lost her way, forgetting to teach about heaven and hell, about mortal sin, the danger to lose one's soul, and the beauty of a life in accordance with God's Will.
When opening the eyes of many thoughtful and concerned Catholics, Archbishop Viganò helped prepare a healing for the Church, because many a Catholic since then returned to the traditional ways of being Catholic. The author of these lines can testify herself that she has heard from several Catholics that they now go to the Traditional Latin Mass, because they do not fear anymore that that is somehow a less worthy Mass, or even a “schismatic” one.
By drawing people to the Traditions of the Church, Archbishop Viganò has opened the way to more sacramental graces and to a deeper understanding of the Faith. For example, when growing into more traditional practices of the Faith, one might have a more reverent attendance at Mass. One might grow in one's understanding of the importance of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue and understand why the Sacrament of Penance is so important. A more reverent and intense life of the Faith will also lead to a change in one's practical life throughout the week. It is grace at work.
But not only did Archbishop Viganò touch the lives of many unto the good, he also called still others to repent. In light of the current coronavirus crisis which has been used by certain elites to restrict our freedoms and to keep many people in a state of fear, the Italian prelate tells us that this is God's way of calling man back to Him. One could say: if we do not obey God's Commandments and forget even to pray to Him for help, He will show us how a life on earth without God looks. It seems there is a growing number of people on earth who realize that a world without God is more and more becoming a hell on earth.
As the readers of this new book will see, Archbishop Viganò also tried to warn the world against the election of Joseph Biden as the President of the United States. He essentially told us that with Biden, the forces of darkness would encroach even further upon us. Having lived through the first two months of this Biden presidency, one could easily understand what he means. The looming Equality Act, for example, could very well already mean the end of the liberty of the Catholic Church in this country.
But in the midst of this political darkness, the Italian prelate gives us hope. He gives us prayers to pray and reminds us to look up to heaven, especially also to Our Lady, who in 1917 in Fatima warned mankind to stop sinning and to repent. She gives us all hope because she had warned us of the spreading of Communism throughout the world – yes, even in America – but at the same time assured us that in the end, there will be a time of peace. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is one of the few prelates of the Catholic Church who now says that he does not believe that the Third Secret of Fatima has been fully revealed.
In all of his interventions, Archbishop Viganò is always eager to answer questions that arise from his statements, and he kindly responds to questions from journalists or priests and laymen. He sees these requests as signs from heaven regarding what he should do next and repeatedly stated that he has no specific plans for his work. Having myself worked with him for some time now, I can testify to his enduring kindness and generosity toward so many people with different backgrounds – and not only this, but also his sweetness and attentiveness toward the Little Ones of Christ, the children.
We also have to remember that he paid the price for his Catholic witness. Since 2018, he has lived apart from the Church's hierarchy of which he had been so long a part, and he lives in a hidden place, in a very private and contemplative fashion.
As Professor McCall says it in his introduction to the book: “Over two thousand years after the birth of St. John the Baptist, God has sent the new Israel another voice crying in the wilderness. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò fled the palaces of Rome into the solitude of a hiding place to decry a new brood of vipers.”
May Viganò be richly rewarded for all that he has given to so many Catholics in the world. And may God keep him for us here on earth for many years to come.
It is a great gift to us that Professor Brian McCall – editor-in-chief of Catholic Family News and a Professor at University of Oklahoma College of Law – took the pains to go through the Viganò texts with care and attention to the readers so that they might better understand some of the references in the text and that Angelico Press published this book.