Cardinal Carlo Maria Vigano is a Catholic bishop who served as the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States from 19th October, 2011 to 12th April, 2016. From 16th July 2009 to 3rd September 2011, he was the Secretary-General of the Governorate of Vatican City State. He is best known for exposing two major Vatican scandals. These included the 2012 Vatican leaks scandal, in which he exposed financial corruption at the Vatican, and a 2018 letter in which he accused Pope Francis and other church leaders of covering up sexual abuse allegations against a former cardinal, Theodore McCarrick.
Cardinal Vigano was ordained a priest in 1968 and received a doctorate in utroque iure (canon and civil law). He served on a number of diplomatic missions as a priest before being consecrated a bishop by Pope John Paul II in 1992. Pope John Paul II had appointed him Titular Archbishop of Ulpiana and Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Nigeria on 3rd April, 1992.
After his mission in Nigeria was concluded in 1998, he was assigned to functions within the Secretariat of State as delegate for Pontificial Representations, making him the personnel chief for the Roman curia as well as Vatican diplomats, spending the majority of his career working for the Holy See in diplomatic capacities. He held this position unitl 16th July 2009 when he was appointed secretary general of the governatorate, where he reformed the Vatican City’s finances and turned a budget deficit into a surplus. In that capacity, he allegedly helped turn a US$10.5 million deficit for the city-state into a $44 million surplus in one year by establishing centralized accounting procedures and accountability for cost overruns. He complained about financial corruption to Pope Benedict XVI directly.
It was on 15th August 2018, when Cardinal Vigano published an 11-page testimony accusing Pope Francis and other senior church leaders of concealing allegations of sexual misconduct against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick that rocked the world. In it, he called out the corruption of the Church, especially with regards to its handling of the sexual abuse crisis—addressing most specifically the case of disgraced now ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick—and stunningly called for the resignation of Pope Francis Bergoglio.
According to Cardinal Vigano, Pope Benedict XVI imposed sanctions on McCarrick in response to accusations leveled against him, but Pope Francis refused to enforce them and instead appointed McCarrick as an important advisor. Vigano demanded the resignation of Pope Francis. The letter elicited a range of reactions within the church, with some expressing support for the allegations and calling for further investigation, while others defended Pope Francis, questioned the letter’s statements, and attacked Vigano’s credibility. Yet, Cardinal Vigano continued to make public statements after the letter was published.
In 2010, Vigano had proposed that the Vatican withdraw from the Euro currency agreement in order to avoid new European banking regulations. Instead, the Vatican chose to stick to the Euro agreement. It was in late January of 2012, when an Italian television programme called Gli Intoccabili (The Untouchables) was aired, purporting to reveal confidential Vatican letters and memos. Among the documents were letters written by Cardinal Vigano to the Pope and the Secretary of the State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, complaining about corruption in the Vatican finances and a defamation campaign against him. This unauthorized publication, triggered the Vatican leaks scandal, which exposed financial mismanagement and wrongdoing with the Vatican. Cardinal Vigano, as the Pope’s second-ranking Vatican administrator, had asked not to be transferred for exposing alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions in higher contract prices.
And yet, he was transferred. It was the same Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone who informed him on 13th August 2011, that Pope Benedict had appointed him nuncio of the United States. According to Reuters, Cardinal Vigano was hesitant to accept this assignment, warning Pope Benedict that this appointment would cause ‘disarray and discouragement’ among those working to combat ‘numerous instances of corruption and waste.’ According to inews, he had suggested that he was effectively exiled in the US for attempting to lift the lid on rampant corruption in the Holy City
One of the letters leaked revealed that Cardinal Vigano had bypassed Cardinal Bertone and complained directly to Pope Benedict about corruption in the Vatican, for which the same Cardinal Bertone arranged for Cardinal Vigano to be transferred to Washington, despite Vigano’s objections.
During Pope Francis’s visit in 2015 to the United States, Cardinal Vigano earned a reputation as a conservative by arranging a contentious meeting between Pope Francis and former county clerk Kim Davis, known for her opposition to same-sex marriage.
Although the official Vatican spokesperson, Federico Lombardi, initially stated that Benedict had “unquestionable faith and trust” in Vigano, a statement signed by some Vatican leaders in February 2012 stated that his allegations were “erroneous”, “unfounded”, and “based on groundless fears.”
The Arcbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan‘s comment stated that the revelation of Viganò’s complaints about corruption and cronyism in Vatican finances “in a way…enhances his credibility as someone who does not look upon the internal workings of the Holy See with rose-colored glasses, but is well aware of difficulties there.”
“On 4 February 2012, Giovanni Lajolo, Giuseppe Bertello, Giuseppe Sciacca, and Giorgio Corbellini issued a joint statement on behalf of the governatorate of the Vatican: ‘The unauthorized publication of two letters of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the first addressed to the Holy Father on March 27, 2011, the second to the Cardinal Secretary of State on May 8, for the Governorate of Vatican City is a source of great bitterness. The allegations contained in them can not but lead to the impression that the Governorate of Vatican City, instead of being an instrument of responsible government, is an unreliable entity, at the mercy of dark forces. After careful examination of the contents of the two letters, the President of the Governorate sees it as its duty to publicly declare that those assertions are the result of erroneous assessments, or fears based on unsubstantiated evidence, even openly contradicted by the main characters invoked as witnesses.'”
When Archbishop Vigano turned 75 years old in January 2016, he was required to resign. On April 12, 2016, Pope Francis accepted his resignation and appointed Archbishop Christophe Pierre as nuncio to the United States.
However, Cardinal Vigano is not only much loved and admired by Conservatives and Catholics, but he continued to issue statements and be in the public eye, as this site will show.
Cardinal Vigano’s spiritual presence is a guiding light during the time that the true Catholic Church is under persecution by the fake modernist Novus Ordo sect.
