A conservative, hardline attacker who became one of Pope Francis’ fiercest critics has been excommunicated by the Vatican.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who once served as the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, was found guilty of schism. The Vatican’s doctrine office imposed the sentence after a meeting of its members on Thursday, a press release said Friday.
In justifying its ruling, the office cited Viganò’s “refusal to recognize and submit to the Pope, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him and of the legitimacy and authority of the Second Vatican Council.”
Viganò, who retired in 2016 at age 75 and served as papal envoy to Washington from 2011 to 2026, roiled the Holy See in 2018 with allegations of sexual abuse and called on Francis to resign.
Patrick Semansky/AP
In an 11-page letterViganò claimed he told Francis in 2013 about the sexual abuse allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. But, he wrote, the pope ignored him and allowed McCarrick to serve the church publicly for five more years. He said the pope should resign and then branded him a “false prophet” and a “servant of Satan.”
In the letter, Viganò also made a number of ideological claims and was critical of homosexuals within the church ranks. He did not provide any evidence for his statements.
The Vatican rejected the accusation of covering up sexual misconduct and summoned Viganò last month to answer charges of schism and denying the legitimacy of the pope.
Viganò, who considered the accusations “an honor,” said he refused to take part in the disciplinary procedure because he did not recognize the legitimacy of the institutions behind them.
“I do not recognize the authority of the court that claims to judge me, nor of its prefect, nor of the one who appointed him,” he said in a statement last week, referring to the head of the doctrinal office, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, and to Francis.
Viganò reiterated his rejection of the Second Vatican Council, calling it “the ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer of which the ‘synod Church’ (of Francis) is the necessary metastasis.”
He had not yet commented on the Vatican’s statement on Friday.
McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, DC, was dismissed from office by Pope Francis in 2019 after a internal Vatican investigation discovered that he sexually abused both adults and children.
