News
Featured Image
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò speaks at the Rome Life Forum in May 2018.don Elvir Tabaković, Can.Reg.

ROME, November 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is urging the re-consecration of St. Peter’s Basilica, in light of what he calls “the appalling idolatrous profanations” that have been committed in its walls through the veneration of the Pachamama statue.

In a new interview on the Amazon Synod with LifeSiteNews, Archbishop Viganò has said: “The abomination of idolatrous rites has entered the sanctuary of God and has given rise to a new form of apostasy whose seeds, which have been active for a long time, are growing with renewed vigor and effectiveness.” 

He continues: “The process of the internal mutation of the faith, which has been taking place in the Catholic Church for several decades, has seen with this Synod a dramatic acceleration towards the foundation of a new creed, summed up in a new kind of worship [cultus]. In the name of inculturation, pagan elements are infesting divine worship so as to transform it into an idolatrous cult.”

Clergy and laity alike “cannot remain indifferent to the idolatrous acts that we witnessed,” the archbishop insists. “It is urgent that we rediscover the meaning of prayer, reparation and penance, of fasting, of ‘little sacrifices, of the little flowers, and above all of silent and prolonged adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.” 

In this in-depth interview (see full text below), we discuss with Archbishop Viganò what the “Pachamama saga” reveals about the state of the Church and how it is the logical consequence of other “aberrant” declarations made under the current pontificate. We also talk about the synod’s final document, which he calls a “head-on strike against the divine edifice” of the Church; what the Amazon Synod reveals about “synodality”; and what its organizers have accomplished. 

According to Archbishop Viganò, the “Amazon paradigm” is aimed at fundamentally “transforming” the Catholic Church, is aligned with a “globalist” agenda, and “serves as a catwalk to ferry what remains of the Catholic edifice towards an indistinct universal religion.”

“For all of us Catholics, the landscape in the Holy Church is becoming darker by the day,” he says. “If this satanic plan is successful, Catholics who adhere to it will in fact change religion, and the immense flock of Our Lord Jesus Christ will be reduced to a minority.” 

“This minority will likely have much to suffer … but with him it will conquer,” he says, concluding his remarks with the provocative, prophetic and timely words of the 14th century mystic and saint, Bridget of Sweden.

Here below is our interview on the Amazon Synod with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

LifeSiteNews: Your Excellency, how would you characterize the arc of the synod narrative? Is there an image that aptly summarizes it?

Archbishop Viganò: The barque of the Church is in the grip of a raging storm. To quell the tempest, those Successors of the Apostles who have tried to leave Jesus on the shore, and who no longer perceive His presence, have begun to invoke the Pachamama!

Jesus prophesied: “When you see the desecrating sacrilege … there will be a great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be” (Mt 24:15;21).

The abomination of idolatrous rites has entered the sanctuary of God and has given rise to a new form of apostasy, whose seeds — which have been active for a long time — are growing with renewed vigor and effectiveness. The process of the internal mutation of the faith, which has been taking place in the Catholic Church for several decades, has seen with this Synod a dramatic acceleration towards the foundation of a new creed, summed up in a new kind of worship [cultus]. In the name of inculturation, pagan elements are infesting divine worship in order to transform it into an idolatrous cult.

What do you think is the most concerning or problematic part of the Amazon Synod’s final document?

The strategy of the entire Amazon Synod operation is deception, the preferred weapon of the devil: telling half-truths to achieve a perverse end. A lack of priests: they therefore say it is necessary to open up to married priests and to a women’s diaconate in order to destroy celibacy, first in the Amazon and then in the entire Church. On what continent was the Catholic Church’s first evangelization ever carried out by married priests? The missions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were carried out primarily by the Latin Church, and only to a very small extent by the Eastern Churches with married clergy.

The final document of this shamefully manipulated assembly, whose agenda and results have been planned for a long time, is a head-on strike against the divine edifice of the Church, attacking the sanctity of the Catholic priesthood, and pushing for the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy and a female diaconate.

What did the Pachamama saga reveal? And what ought to be done in response?

In Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis stated in writing that God “wills” all religions. Despite the fraternal correction offered to him in person and in writing by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Pope Francis has ordered that his heretical declaration be taught in pontifical universities and that a special Commission be created to spread this grave doctrinal error.

Consistent with this aberrant doctrine, it’s not surprising that paganism and idolatry should also be included among the religions willed by God. The Pope has shown us this and has implemented it personally, profaning the Vatican gardens and the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, and desecrating St. Peter’s Basilica and the synod’s closing Mass by placing on the altar of the Confession that idolatrous “plant” that is closely connected with the Pachamama.

According to the tradition of the Church, the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina and St. Peter’s Basilica must be re-consecrated in light of the appalling idolatrous profanations that have been committed in them.

The Pachamama saga revealed a blatant and very serious violation of the First Commandment, as well as the drift towards idolatry in a “Church with an Amazonian face.” That rite, which took place in the heart of Christianity, and which Bergoglio attended, assumes the value of an initiatory rite of the new religion. Veneration of the Pachamama is the poisonous fruit of “inculturation” at any price, and a fanatical expression of “Indian Theology.” The Synod offered a launching pad for this new syncretistic, neo-pagan church, which is dedicated to the cult of Mother Earth, to the naturalist myth of the “good savage,” and to the rejection of the Western model and lifestyle of advanced societies. 

Idolatry seals apostasy. It is the fruit of the denial of the true faith. It is born of mistrust in God and degenerates into protest and rebellion. Fr. Serafino Lanzetta recently said: 

To worship an idol is to worship oneself in place of God… it is to worship the anti-god who seduces and separates us from God, i.e. the devil, as can clearly be seen from the words of Jesus to the tempter in the desert (cf. Mt 4:8-10). Man cannot but adore, but he must choose whom he will adore. In tolerating the presence of idols— the Pachamama in our present context — alongside faith, it is said that religion is basically what satisfies man’s desires. Idols are always enticing because one adores what one wants and, above all, one doesn’t have to endure many moral headaches. On the contrary, idols for the most part are the sublimation of all human instincts. The real headache, however, comes when moral corruption spreads and infests the Church. An “abandonment of God” for impurity, to become prostitutes to other gods by exchanging God’s truth with lies, and by worshipping and serving creatures instead of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:24-25). It seems that St. Paul is speaking to us today. The root of this sad and tragic story is dogmatic and moral collapse.

We cannot remain indifferent to the idolatrous acts that we have witnessed and left us dumbfounded. These assaults against the holiness of our Mother Church demand from us a just and generous reparation. It is urgent that we rediscover the meaning of prayer, reparation and penance, of fasting, of the “little sacrifices, of the little flowers,” and above all of silent and prolonged adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.

Let us beg the Lord to return and speak to the heart of his Beloved Bride, drawing her back to Himself in the grace of her first and irrevocable love, after making the mistake of surrendering herself to the world and its prostitution.

What has the Amazon Synod shown us about the nature of “synodality”?

The Church is not a democracy. The Synod of Bishops, since Paul VI established it with the Motu Proprio Apostolica Sollicitudo on September 15, 1965, has always dealt with problems concerning the universal Church, and has granted bishops representing all episcopal conferences wordwide the right to participate. The Synod for the Amazon did not respect this criterion.

The Church in the Amazon certainly has major problems of its own, which therefore need to be addressed at the local level. To resolve them it would have been sufficient for the Latin American bishops to have followed the recommendations that Pope Benedict XVI made to them on the occasion of his visit to Aparecida in 2007. They did not do so. Indeed, for decades many of them have allowed if not encouraged adherents of liberation theology and ideologies of largely Germanic origin, with the Jesuits on the front line, to continue to refuse to proclaim Christ as the only Savior. 

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Mt 7:15). The situation in part of the Church in the Amazon has been a failure, partly because of the apostolic nuncios in Brazil, such as the current Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, who proposed candidates for the episcopate such as those we saw at the Amazon Synod. By holding a Synod in Rome, instead of holding a local synod, and by inviting bishops selected from among the blindest ones to guide other blind men, was there an attempt to export and spread the disease to the universal Church?

Pope Francis uses “synodality” in a highly contradictory and minimally synodal way! “Synodality” is one of the “mantras” of the current pontificate, the magical solution to all the problems affecting the life of the Church. The much acclaimed “synodal conversion” has supplanted conversion to Christ. This is precisely why “synodality” is not the solution but the problem.

Moreover, Pope Francis seems to conceive of synodality as a one-way street: the actors, content and results are planned and directed in a targeted and unambiguous way. As a result, the synodal institution is seriously de-legitimized, and the faithful’s adherence to it is undermined.

One also has the impression that synodality is being seized and used as an instrument to break free from Tradition and from what the Church has always taught. How can true synodality exist where absolute fidelity to doctrine is absent?

Speaking at the Angelus about the recently concluded assembly, Francis said: “We walked looking into each other’s eyes and listening to one another with sincerity, without hiding the difficulties.” These words speak of a synodality exercised from below, not from Christ the Lord nor from listening to his eternal Truth. They reflect a sociological and worldly synodality that serves a merely human, ideological project.

Do you have any thoughts on how the Vatican media apparatus handled the synod? Critics say it has lost all credibility.

During the Synod we witnessed a Soviet-style communication management, with the imposition of an “official version” that almost never coincided with reality. When the evidence of lies or ambiguity was brought to light by so many courageous journalists, they denied it or denounced conspiracy.

Garments were rent, to the point of filing an official complaint, over the goddess mothers Pachamama being thrown into the miry Tiber! Then there were the usual epithets: conservative and fanatical Catholics, retrogrades who don’t believe in dialogue, people who ignore the history of the Church, according to an editorial published in Vatican News, complete with a quotation from St. John-Henry Cardinal Newman, and was favorable to the statues. Yet the Newman quote, according to which the elements of pagan origin are sanctified by their adoption into the Church, not only testifies to the bad faith of the person who used it but also backfires against him.

The Newman quote in fact highlights the substantial difference between the wise practice of Christ’s Church and the methods of the modernist apostasy. Indeed, the Roman Church, which destroyed the tyranny of demonic idols (think of the demolition of the temples of Apollo by St. Benedict or the sacred oak by St. Boniface) and established the kingdom of Christ, adopts forms of ancient pagan religion and baptizes them. The new modernists, on the other hand, who believe that God positively wills the diversity of religions, happily surrender themselves to syncretism and idolatry.

What specifically about the Church and her Faith has been put at risk or threatened by the Amazon Synod?

The Amazon Synod is part of a process that aims at nothing less than changing the Church. The pontificate of Pope Francis is studded with sensational acts aimed at undermining doctrines, practices and structures that until now have been considered consubstantial with the Catholic Church. He himself has defined this process as a “paradigm shift,” i.e., a clear break with the Church that preceded him.

With the Amazonian Synod, the utopia of a new tribalist and ecologist church has emerged on the horizon. It is the old project of that Latin American progressivism that was already confronted by John Paul II and then-Cardinal Ratzinger but never really eradicated — and now it is being promoted by the top of the Catholic hierarchy. The aim of this Synod is to move towards the definitive consecration of liberation theology in its “green” and “tribal” version.

With this Synod, as on other occasions, the Catholic Church appears to be aligned with the strategies that dominate the globalist scene and are supported by powerful forces and finance. These strategies are radically anti-human and intrinsically anti-Christian. The agenda even includes the promotion of abortion, gender ideology, and homosexualism, and it dogmatizes the theory of anthropogenic global warming. 

For all of us Catholics, the landscape in the Holy Church is becoming darker by the day. The ongoing progressive offensive portends a real revolution, not only in the way the Church is understood, but also in the apocalyptic images it gives to the whole world order. With deep sadness, we see the present pontificate marked by unusual facts, disconcerting behavior and statements that contradict traditional doctrine, and which sow a general doubt in souls about what the Catholic Church is and what her true and immutable principles are. It feels as though we are in the grip of a religious chaos of gigantic proportion. If this satanic plan is successful, Catholics who adhere to it will in fact change religion, and the immense flock of Our Lord Jesus Christ will be reduced to a minority. This minority will likely have much to suffer. But it will be sustained by Our Lord’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, and with Him it will conquer in the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary promised by Our Lady at Fatima.

What do you think synod organizers have accomplished from their point of view? What advances have they made in their agenda?

The organizers and protagonists of the Synod have certainly achieved one of their objectives: to make the Church more Amazonian and the Amazon less Catholic. The Amazonian paradigm is therefore not the end of the transformation process at which the “pastoral-revolution” promoted by the current papal magisterium aims. It serves as a catwalk to ferry what remains of the Catholic edifice towards an indistinct Universal Religion.

The Amazonian paradigm, with its pantheistic veneration of Mother Earth and utopian interconnection between all the elements of nature, should enable (according to the theological speculations developed in the Germanic regions) the overcoming of the traditional Catholic religion through a Worldwide and Stateless Pantheon. The recent Synod has been successful in the sense of creating an Amazonian church constituted by a set of beliefs, worship, pagan-sacramental practices, liturgies that are inculturated in communion with Nature, and many married Indian clergy, with a view towards ordaining women. It is an aberrant and truly significant step in the agenda of an “out-going Church” that is busy in the process of the Great Substitution of Catholicism with Another Religion, that which glorifies Man in the place of God.

You are the former apostolic nuncio to the United States. What would you think of the laity flooding the Vatican and Apostolic Nunciatures with letters?

“The kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and men of violence take it by force.” (Mt 11:12). As Professor Roberto De Mattei invites us: “We must militarize our hearts and transform them into an Acies Ordinata. The Church is not afraid of her enemies and always wins when Christians fight. Our adversaries are united by their hatred of the good, we must unite in love for good and truth. This is not an ordinary battle but a war! It is urgent that the Catholic resistance be strongly united and visible in the face of the ongoing process of the Church’s self-demolition, also by overcoming “the many misunderstandings that often divide the field of the good and seek among these forces a unity of purpose and action, while maintaining their different legitimate identities” (De Mattei).

In this gravest of hours, the laity are certainly the spearhead of the resistance. By their courage, they must appeal to us shepherds and encourage us to come forward, with more courage and determination, to defend the Bride of Christ. The warning of Saint Catherine of Siena is addressed to us shepherds: “Open your eyes and look at the perversity of death that has come into the world, and especially into the Body of the Holy Church. Alas, may your hearts and souls burst at seeing so many offenses against God! Alas, enough silence! shout with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that, through silence, the world is dead, the Bride of Christ is pale.”

Is there anything you wish you add?

Let us give the last word to St. Bridget of Sweden, co-patroness of Europe:

The Father spoke, while the whole host of heaven was listening, and he said:

“Before you I state my complaint that I gave my daughter to a man who torments her terribly and binds her feet to a wooden stake so that the marrow has all gone out of her feet.”

The Son answered him: “Father, I redeemed her with my blood and betrothed her to myself, but now she has been seized by force.”

The Father exclaimed: “My son, I share your lament, your word is mine, your works are mine. You are in me and I in you. May your will be done.”

Then the Mother spoke, saying: “You are my God and my Lord. My body bore the limbs of your blessed Son, who is your true Son and my true Son. I refused him nothing on earth. For the sake of my prayers, have mercy on your daughter, the Church!”

The Father replied: “Since you refused me nothing on earth, I do not want to refuse you anything in heaven. May your will be done.”

After this, the angels spoke, saying: “You are our Lord, In you we possess every good thing, and we need nothing but you. When you chose this Bride, we all rejoiced; by now we have reason to be sad, because she has been given over into the hands of the worst of men who offends her with all kinds of insults and abuse. So have mercy on her according to your great mercy, and there is no one to console and free her but you, Lord, God Almighty.”

Then he said to the angels: “You are my friends and the flame of your love burns in my heart. I will have mercy on my daughter, my Church, for love of your prayers.” (Revelations, Book I, Chapter 24).

Again, let us allow St. Bridget to speak:

“Know that if any pope grants priests the permission to contract carnal matrimony, he will be spiritually condemned by God … God would completely deprive that same pope of spiritual vision and hearing as well as of spiritual words and deeds. All his spiritual wisdom would become altogether frozen. Then, after his death, his soul would be thrown into hell to be tormented forever, there to become the food of demons eternally and without end. Yes, even if Pope St. Gregory himself had decreed this, he would never have obtained God’s pardon from that sentence, unless he had humbly revoked it before death” (Revelations, Book VII, 10).

Lord, have mercy on your Church, for love of our prayers and afflictions!