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Archbishop Carlo Maria ViganòLifeSiteNews

July 8, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – In a new exclusive written interview with LifeSiteNews, former U.S. nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò condemns Pope Francis’s recent endorsement of homosexuality-promoting priest Father James Martin.

“It is a suicidal gesture in which the leaders of the Church surrender unconditionally to the antichristic ideology of globalism and hand over the entire flock of Christ as a hostage to the Enemy, abdicating their role as Pastors and showing themselves for who they really are: mercenaries and traitors,” he said.

It is, said Archbishop Viganò, “outrageous towards God, scandalous for the honor of the Church, a matter of grave scandal for the faithful and a desolating abandonment for priests and confessors that a voice can be given to a Jesuit [Fr. James Martin] who bases his personal success not on proper pastoral action seeking the conversion of individual homosexuals with respect to Morality, but on the illusory promise of some change in Catholic doctrine that would legitimize people’s sinful behavior.”

The former Vatican representative to the U.S., who is known internationally for his exposing of the cover up of the abuses of now-ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, shows himself in the interview (full text below) to be an outstanding teacher of the faith able to reach the simple and the erudite simultaneously with a truth which, while stark, is imbued with charity.

Explaining the teaching of the Church on the touchy subject of homosexuality, Archbishop Viganò said, “The Church, faithful to the teaching of her Head, is Mother and not stepmother: she does not indulge her children’s weaknesses and inclination to sin, but she admonishes them, exhorts them, and punishes them with medicinal sanctions in order to lead every soul to the purpose for which it has been created, that is, eternal beatitude.”

“It is necessary to show, with patient but firm spiritual direction,” he said, “that every human being has a supernatural destiny and a path of suffering and sacrifices that temper him and make him worthy of his eternal reward. There is no Resurrection without Calvary, no victory without a fight!”

“This is true,” he added, “for every soul redeemed by Our Lord: both the married person and the celibate, the priest and the layperson, the man and the woman, the child and the elder.”

“The battle against one’s own nature corrupted by Original Sin unites us all: the one who manages money must fight against the temptation to steal, the one who is married must fight against the temptation to betray his or her spouse, the one who lives in chastity must fight against temptations against purity, the one who eats nice food must fight against the temptation to gluttony, and the one who is exposed to public applause must fight against the temptation to pride.”

“Thus, with humility and trust in the Grace of God, and having recourse to the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin, every person whom the Lord puts to the test – even in the painful situation of homosexuality – must understand that it is in the battle against sin that one conquers one’s place in eternity.”

And while his words for those struggling with tendencies to sin were clear, firm, and loving, his commentary on the shepherds who would mislead the sheep was severe.

Viganò praised pastors who in charity use discipline to call wayward Catholics back to the truth by refusing them Holy Communion: “Pastors who are faithful to the mandate conferred on them by Our Lord not only recognize their situation of public sin but also do not wish to aggravate it with the profanation of the Blessed Sacrament,” he said.

However, he said, those prelates who advocate the opposite, “like Cupich, Tobin, Gregory, and their followers” are “even more rebellious” than the pro-abortion politicians that they grant Holy Communion and are themselves “unworthy of celebrating the Sacred Mysteries.”

Read the full interview exclusively below:

 

Viriliter agite, et confortetur cor vestrum.
Act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened.

Ps 30:25

LifeSiteNews: What do you think of Pope Francis’s support for Father James Martin?

Archbishop Viganò: The LGBTQ+ ideology and the gender theory that it presupposes as its postulate represent a mortal threat for our entire society, the family, the human person, and also obviously for the Church, because they dissolve the social body, relations between its members, and the very concept of the biological reality of the sexes, which is arbitrarily changed to each person’s questionable and variable subjective self-perception based on gender. Many do not realize the chaos this will cause not only in civil and family habits but in religious ones as well, as soon as recognition of the LGBTQ+ movement inevitably leads to people with what may be defined as gender dysphoria demanding to be welcomed in parishes and communities. An emblematic example could be the case of a man ordained as a priest who at a certain point believes that he identifies as a woman: should we prepare for the eventuality of seeing Mass celebrated by a trans-sexual or a transvestite? And how can we reconcile the persistent existence of the male chromosome – which indefectibly defines the matter of the Sacrament of Holy Orders – with the appearances of a woman? What should we think about the case of a nun who, developing a male self-perception, demands to be transferred to a religious community of men and perhaps even to receive Holy Orders? This delusion, whose consequences are absurd and disturbing in the civil sphere, if applied to the religious sphere, would inflict a mortal blow on the already tortured ecclesial body.

We must consider the reasons that have led a personality like James Martin, S.J., to enjoy such notoriety and visibility in the ecclesial sphere and even in the Roman institutions, receiving an appointment as a Consultor of the Dicastery for Communications and recently being the recipient of a hand-written letter from Bergoglio. His ostentatious commitment in support of the pan-sexualist movement effectively offers considered and acritical support for an unlimited series of sexual variations and perversions. Such a priori adhesion is not the deplorable excess of a single Jesuit but represents the planned action of an ideological vanguard that has already proven to be uncontrollable and capable of orienting the very “Magisterium” of Bergoglio and his court.

The LGBTQ+ ideology constitutes the new moral paradigm of the globalist religion of the indistinct, which is of a clear Gnostic and Luciferian matrix.  The absence of supernaturally revealed dogmas serves as the premise of a post-human superdogma, in which Faith is perverted into an unconditional acceptance of every sort of heresy and depravity, Hope dissolves into the absurd claim of an already-guaranteed salvation hic et nunc, and Charity is corrupted into a horizontal solidarity deprived of its ultimate reference in God. The activism of the Jesuit Martin foreshadows the rainbow ministry of the Age of Aquarius, the religion of the Antichrist, and the worship of idols and demons, beginning with the filthy Pachamama.

For this reason, the indecent and scandalous Bergoglian endorsement of the aberrant provocations of James Martin is only one more step down a path that started with his famous “Who am I to judge?” in perfect coherence with the line of “rupture” of this “pontificate.” It is a suicidal gesture in which the leaders of the Church surrender unconditionally to the antichristic ideology of globalism and hand over the entire flock of Christ as a hostage to the Enemy, abdicating their role as Pastors and showing themselves for who they really are: mercenaries and traitors. Scandalized, we are witnessing the transition from “argue, obsecra, increpa, insta opportune importune” – “reprove, entreat, rebuke, be instant in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2) – to “loquimini nobis placentia” – “speak unto us pleasant things” (Is 30:10).

It is therefore unsurprising that James Martin enjoys such appreciation in the highest spheres of the Vatican, which according to the methodology in force since Vatican II leaves a free hand to the most agitated exponents of progressive currents and then adopts the Hegelian dialectic between the thesis of natural and Catholic morality, the antithesis of doctrinal deviations, and the synthesis of a new magisterium in step with the times.

This way of proceeding, which may seem to some to be a prudent updating to the secularized mentality of our time, nevertheless reveals an abysmal betrayal of the teaching of Christ and the law impressed in man by his Creator. A greater license in vice – largely desired and promoted by today’s dominant anti-Christian ideology – does not legitimize in any way this denial on the part of the Hierarchy of the command it has received from Our Lord, nor can it authorize operations of adulteration that aim solely at indulging the worldly spirit and the corruption of morals. On the contrary, the more the mainstream pushes for a cancellation of the immutable principles of Catholic morality, the more pastors have the duty to raise their voice to reaffirm without hesitation what God has commanded them to preach.

I therefore find it outrageous towards God, scandalous for the honor of the Church, a matter of grave scandal for the faithful and a desolating abandonment for priests and confessors that a voice can be given to a Jesuit who bases his personal success not on proper pastoral action seeking the conversion of individual homosexuals with respect to Morality, but on the illusory promise of some change in Catholic doctrine that would legitimize people’s sinful behavior and grants the dignity of interlocutor to the so-called LGBTQ+ movements. The mere use of this acronym, which supports people by identifying them mechanically in their specific sexual perversion against nature, demonstrates a prostration of James Martin and his collaborators to the demands of the pan-sexual lobby, which the Church cannot accept or legitimize in the least.

In any case, if a large part of the Clergy is so impatient to see the demands of LGBTQ+ ideology endorsed by the Hierarchy, this is clearly due to an execrable conflict of interest and a very deep moral and disciplinary crisis.

Is it possible to change the teaching of the Church with regard to homosexual unions, especially considering that Pope Francis has publicly approved civil unions, which in the past were condemned by magisterial documents of the Vatican?

It must be made clear that behaviors against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue, especially those concerning sexual disorders that offend the Creator in the natural distinction of the sexes themselves and in the procreative purpose of the conjugal act, cannot be subjected to any updating, not even under pressure of power groups or iniquitous laws promulgated by the civil authority.

The hedonistic and pan-sexualist mentality that lies at the foundation of today’s dominant ideology, according to which the exercise of sexuality is not intrinsically ordered towards procreation but can have as its sole purpose the unregulated satisfaction of pleasure, should also be denounced without hesitation. This vision is repugnant to the natural order willed by the Creator, which makes the sexual act lawful only in the union of spouses blessed by the Sacrament and open to conception. It is evident that, since nature firstly does not make procreation between two men or two women possible, every form of sexuality between persons of the same sex is intrinsically disordered, and as such cannot be justified in any way.

Civil unions are nothing but forms of public legitimization of concubinage in which the couple does not assume the responsibilities and duties connected to the natural institution of marriage. If the civil authority approves such unions, it abuses its own authority, which Providence has instituted within the very precise limits of the bonum commune and never in direct contradiction of the salus animarum which the Church watches over with Her maternal authority. But if such unions are ratified by the ecclesiastical authority, the betrayal of the divine mandate is added to the perversion of the purpose for which the supreme Lawgiver willed it, rendering every even implicit form of official approval of sinful and scandalous behaviors de facto null and void.

There are many bishops in the United States who sign letters in support of indentification as LGBT and confirm this orientation, just as others – like Cardinal Cupich – suggest that homosexual couples can receive Holy Communion. What is your message to Catholics who may be bewildered by such pronouncements?

The pseudo-magisterium of recent years, in particular that of Amoris Laetitia regarding the admission to the Sacraments of public concubinaries and divorcees, has opened a breach in that part of the Magisterium which even after Vatican II had been preserved from systematic demolition by the innovators. It is therefore not surprising, even in its absolute gravity, that once people who are in the state of mortal sin have been admitted to Holy Communion, this unfortunate decision is then extended to people who do not have the capacity to contract legitimate marriages, since they are not a couple consisting of a man and a woman. But on closer inspection, this heterodox vision also concerns politicians who in their action of governance and social commitment publicly contradict Catholic teaching and betray the commitment to coherence which they assumed with their Baptism and Confirmation. On the other hand, so-called “adult Catholics” – who in the eyes of God are simply rebellious against His holy Law – find widespread approval among Bishops who are even more rebellious – like Cupich, Tobin, Gregory, and their followers, who are themselves unworthy of celebrating the Sacred Mysteries – while the Pastors who are faithful to the mandate conferred on them by Our Lord not only recognize their situation of public sin but also do not wish to aggravate it with the profanation of the Blessed Sacrament.

What is the essential and immutable teaching of the Church with regard to homosexuality?

The Church, faithful to the teaching of her Head, is Mother and not stepmother: she does not indulge her children’s weaknesses and inclination to sin, but she admonishes them, exhorts them, and punishes them with medicinal sanctions in order to lead every soul to the purpose for which it has been created, that is, eternal beatitude. Every soul, willed and loved by God, has been redeemed by the Redeemer on the Cross, for whom He has shed his very Blood: Cujus una stilla salvum facere totum mundum quit ab omni scelere. As we read in the Adoro te devote, composed by the Doctor Communis, one single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Christ has the power to save the entire human race from all of its sins.

The Church’s immutable teaching is simple, crystalline, and inspired by the love of God and the love of neighbor for His sake. It does not impose itself as a cruel castration of the tendencies and orientations of the human person which it irrationally defends as legitimate, but rather as a loving and harmonious development of the individual towards the sole purpose that can completely fulfill him and that corresponds to the intimate essence of his nature. Man is born to love, adore, and serve God, and so attain eternal beatitude in the glory of Paradise.

Making him believe that by indulging the corrupt instincts of original sin and personal sins he can in some way fulfill himself far from God and against Him constitutes a culpable deception and a very grave responsibility on the part of those who abuse their role as Shepherds in order to delude the sheep and plunge them into the abyss.

Instead, it is necessary to show, with patient but firm spiritual direction, that every human being has a supernatural destiny and a path of suffering and sacrifices that temper him and make him worthy of his eternal reward. There is no Resurrection without Calvary, no victory without a fight! This is true for every soul redeemed by Our Lord: both the married person and the celibate, the priest and the layperson, the man and the woman, the child and the elder. The battle against one’s own nature corrupted by Original Sin unites us all: the one who manages money must fight against the temptation to steal, the one who is married must fight against the temptation to betray his or her spouse, the one who lives in chastity must fight against temptations against purity, the one who eats nice food must fight against the temptation to gluttony, and the one who is exposed to public applause must fight against the temptation to pride.

Thus, with humility and trust in the Grace of God, and having recourse to the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin, every person whom the Lord puts to the test – even in the painful situation of homosexuality – must understand that it is in the battle against sin that one conquers one’s place in eternity, makes the Passion of Christ not rendered vain, and causes the splendor of the Mercy of God to shine forth towards His creatures, whom He helps in the moment of temptation – not with the illusory approval of inclinations to evil but by pointing to the glorious destiny that awaits each one of us: being admitted to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb wearing the royal robe that He has prepared for us.

May we be assisted in this earthly pilgrimage by the Grace regained with sacramental Absolution and the celestial food of the Holy Eucharist, the Bread of Angels and pledge of future glory.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

3 July 2021
Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr