Vatican whistleblower Viganò: Pope Francis is the one ‘provoking’ schism
amazon synod, carlo maria viganò, catholic, pope francis, robert moynihan, schism
ROME, September 20, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― A veteran Vatican journalist has revealed that a Vatican whistleblower told him that Pope Francis is ‘provoking’ a schism in the Catholic Church.
Dr. Robert Moynihan, founder and editor-in-chief of Inside the Vatican magazine, recently published remarks he says Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò made to him in response to Pope Francis’ recent reflections on schism.
On his September 10 flight to Rome from a five-day trip to Madagascar and Mozambique, the Argentinian pontiff told reporters that he was “not afraid of schisms” and that a schism “is always an elitist separation stemming from an ideology detached from doctrine.”
“Pope Francis is saying that because he knows the Amazon Synod may provoke a schism,” Viganò allegedly told Moynihan.
“He is ready to say others are making the schism, but (by his actions in continuing to support the Amazon Synod) he is provoking it himself,” the Vatican whistleblower continued.
“Is this the attitude of a pastor who cares for the faithful? It is his own duty to prevent a schism.”
Moynihan published the remarks on September 11, saying that the Archbishop had made them to him in conversation that day.
The famous commentator on the Catholic Church also published two opinions he found in reader-based comments connected to a LifeSiteNews story about Francis’ most recent airplane interview, “Pope Francis welcomes honest criticism: ‘This is loving the Church’”.
The first, by reader “Luxsit”, indicated fears that those Catholics who hold fast to perennial Catholic doctrine are being “set up” as “scapegoat ‘schismatics’”.
“I think it is likely we are being setup to be labeled the scapegoat ‘schismatics’ when the Vatican officially becomes apostate (and the real schismatics), though the groundwork was laid decades ago,” the commenter wrote.
“In the eyes of the world, that will support the Vatican’s claims that anything orthodox is ‘outside the Church.’ It is almost a perfect ploy for secular governments intent on eliminating Christianity from any public presence and moral conscience of the world.”
“I believe you are spot on here,” replied reader “Borghesius” in the second remark Moynihan cited.
“The liberals could have split off from the Church at any time in the previous 4 pontificates: they have been in a de facto schism ever since the (dissenting) response to Humanae Vitae,” he continued.
“But Francis gives them the opportunity, and they want it to appear, that THEY are Church and the Catholics are splitting off from them. That way they get the money, power, property, and can claim to be the Catholic church when by belief they are nothing of the sort. All that won’t last, if you are separated from the Source.”
Taken together, all these remarks alarm Moynihan, who sees in them evidence that there is danger of “a break.”
Such remarks are part of “the drumbeat of a criticism of many of Pope Francis’ decisions and actions, from the sexual abuse crisis, to the reform of the Roman Curia, to the agreement with the Chinese government, to his closing of conservative religious orders, to his seeming focus of environmental issues though all previous Popes focused above all on the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ, and on what that meant for all human beings,” he wrote.
