The Catholic Church is one, holy, catholic (meaning universal) and Apostolic. Is the true Church this one, over here, or that one, over there? She is universal, and so cannot be found only in scattered remnants of the faithful. She is holy, and therefore, She can never be taken over by evil. She is apostolic, meaning that the one true Church is none other than the one led by the successors of Peter, whose faith is never failing, and the successors of the other Apostles, the body of Bishops. The Church, the Pope, and the body of Bishops (only as a body) are each indefectible. The Roman Pontiff in particular has the charism of truth and of never failing faith, and so he can never commit apostasy, heresy, or schism, idolatry, sacrilege, or blasphemy. In addition, the Pope can never err gravely in any non-infallible teaching, and cannot err at all in his infallible teachings. Then the body of Bishops led by the Pope, whether teaching in an Ecumenical Council or in the ordinary universal Magisterium dispersed in the world, can never err on faith and morals. For the ordinary universal Magisterium is infallible on faith and morals, and so also is every Ecumenical Council infallible on faith and morals. For the teaching of these two modes of the Magisterium are from the Roman Pontiff and the body of Bishops. If they were to err, there would be none to correct them, as the only persons who teach with authority in the Church are the Roman Pontiff and the body of Bishops. So Ecumenical Councils and the ordinary universal Magisterium are each infallible in all that they teach on faith or morals.

The end times will see a great apostasy in which a third of the stars from the heavens, that is, a third of the Bishops, will go astray from the true faith of Catholic Christianity. But never at any time will the Roman Pontiff go astray, and Jesus promised that Peter and his successors would never fail in faith (Lk 22:32). Furthermore, it is a dogma of the ordinary universal Magisterium and Vatican I that the faith of the Roman Pontiffs can never fail. So no valid Pope can ever commit apostasy, heresy, or schism, nor idolatry, sacrilege, or blasphemy. Even during the worst of the end times (which is for a future generation to endure), the Popes each remain faithful to Christ, and so does the body of Bishops.

Vigano: “I spoke of the eclipse that is obscuring the Church of Christ, superimposing over it an anti-church of heretics, corrupt men, and fornicators.”

This claim by Vigano is contrary to the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church and is therefore heretical. Carlo Vigano is a manifest heretic who is automatically excommunicated. He has no authority as a Bishop, having lost that authority by heresy.

When Vigano claims that the true Church has had, superimposed over it, an anti-church, he means the Church led by the Roman Pontiff and all Bishops who support the Roman Pontiff, who are in communion with him, and who also support and teach the doctrines of Vatican II. But since the Church is one, holy, universal, and apostolic, that cannot be true. There is no “anti-church” led by the successors of Peter and the successors of the other Apostles. The one and only Church is Apostolic, and also holy. So neither proposition is true: that the church led by the successors of the Apostles is an anti-church or that the church led by them has become evil or unfaithful. One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic — something Vigano denies.

Vigano: “Catholics know that the Church must retrace the footsteps of her Head, Jesus Christ, along the way of His Passion and Cross, and that the end times will be marked by a great apostasy that will strike the ecclesial Body even up to its highest levels.”

What he claims “Catholics know” is heretical. The great apostasy, which will occur in the future, cannot strike the Body of Christ even to its highest levels (plural), which can only mean the Pope and the body of Bishops. For the Roman Pontiffs have the charism of truth and of never failing faith. No Pope can commit apostasy, heresy, or schism. And the Antichrist will have no desire to become Pope; instead, he wishes to destroy the Church utterly, and be worshiped as if he were god. So even during the time of the Antichrist, in the distant future, no Pope commits apostasy. No Pope is ever the Antichrist, nor the false prophet who assists the Antichrist. Jesus promised that the gates of Hell will never prevail over the Church because She is founded on the Roman Pontiffs. And that will be most clearly true during the time of the Antichrist, when it will be clear that the gates of Hell are pursuing the Church openly to destroy Her, and it will be just as clear that the gates fail.

If Vigano believes that we are now in the time of the great apostasy, then who is the Antichrist? Does he think that the Antichrist is in the world today? Why does he not warn us, then, as to whom it is we should fear? But in truth the Antichrist is of the distant future (early 25th century AD).

Vigano: “Thus, just as on Golgotha the Sanhedrin thought that it had defeated Our Lord by having him condemned to death by Pontius Pilate, today the Vatican Sanhedrin believes that it can overthrow the Church by delivering it into the hands of the globalist anti-Christian tyranny.”

Calling the Roman Pontiff and the Apostolic See and those Bishops in communion with the Roman Pontiff “the Sanhedrin” that condemned our Lord to die is an expression of severe schism, a heresy contrary to the dogmas of the indefectibility of the Church and the charism of truth and of never failing faith of the Roman Pontiffs, and very much an act of apostasy itself. For the Church is one. To claim that the Church is now the Sanhedrin that rejects Christ utterly, accusing the body of Christ, with Christ as its head and the Holy Spirit as its soul, of such evil is an act of apostasy. For there is no other Church to which one would go, after such an extreme condemnation is made against the one Apostolic Church.

Carlo Vigano has apostatized. He is a schismatic and heretic. But more so, he has also utterly rejected Catholic Christianity. And since he realizes that other Christian faiths are not the one Church, nothing is left to which he might adhere to call himself a Christian. That is why Vigano is a apostate. There is no other Church apart from the one Apostolic Church, which he rejects and accuses of rejecting Christ.

Vigano: “The attack that was initially launched from the outside against the Catholic monolith has evolved, from the Second Vatican Council onwards, into an action of widespread infiltration by means of the deep state in civil society and the deep church in the religious sphere.”

His rejection of the Second Vatican Council is schismatic and heretical. Every teaching of every Ecumenical Council on faith and morals is entirely inerrant, as Saint Robert Bellarmine taught, and as Ludwig Ott, in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, states is of the ordinary universal Magisterium. For every teaching of a Council is either a definition or at least taught definitively. For when the Roman Pontiff and the body of Bishops teach in an Ecumenical Council, they are teaching the whole Church, and there is no recourse to anyone else, so it is necessarily a definitive teaching. But some expressions of a Council may be of the prudential order, and such decisions are certainly free from grave error, for the sake of the indefectibility of the Church, but can err to a limited extent.

Also, since the time of Vatican II, its teachings have continued to be taught by the successive Popes and by the successive Bishops throughout the world, making its teachings also infallible under the ordinary universal Magisterium. Nor has any Ecumenical Council ever been known to err on faith or morals, not when the decisions was approved by the Roman Pontiff.

Thus, Vigano commit schism and heresy by rejecting Vatican II, and by contradicting the indefectibility of the Church. For the Church can never be taken over by evil, nor infiltrated at Her highest levels by evil. She is the body of Christ with the Holy Spirit as Her soul, and so accusing the Church of being taken over or infiltrated by evil is the same as claiming that Christ himself has a demon, and that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

When you accuse the sole Ark of Salvation of being corrupted at the highest levels, so that Her pilot and helmsman [gubernatorem et rectorem] is said to guide Her so badly that She makes a shipwreck of the Faith, how will you be saved? There is no other.

Carlo Vigano does not believe that Pope Francis is the valid Roman Pontiff and successor of Peter. In this public expression, Vigano accuses him of apostasy and of being among “heretics, corrupt men, and fornicators”, accuses him of leading a modern-day Sanhedrin which tries to overthrow the Church, and other such accusations which are incompatible with a valid Pontificate. Manifest heretics, schismatics, and apostates are automatically excommunicated, and are no longer members, so they cannot be the head of the Church either, as Saint Robert Bellarmine and all the Church fathers have taught.

Vigano always makes a point of calling the Roman Pontiff, Pope Francis as “Bergoglio” to express malice towards him. As Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches, stealing the smallest sum out of malice is a grave sin, and so, similarly, the slightest expression of disrespect — if it is said with real full malice — is also a grave sin.

Vigano: “all of these elements suggest that the Argentine wants to legitimize LGBTQ ideology.”

He calls Pope Francis “the Argentine” to show disrespect for him, but perhaps also for some other reason, which is not clear yet.

Vigano: “I wonder if Bergoglio himself, who was unknown to many people until March 13, 2013, is not being blackmailed by those who benefit with such impunity from his clemency.”

The Roman Pontiff cannot be blackmailed into teaching grave error or committing apostasy, heresy, or schism. Each Pope has the continual help of the Holy Spirit. If the Pope could be blackmailed then the Church would not be indefectible. It is also a grave sin to accuse the Vicar of Christ of doing evil in response to blackmail without any evidence at all (“I wonder if”).

Vigano: “This would explain the motive that leads the one who sits on the Throne to rage with so much ruthlessness against the Church of Christ, while showing the greatest respect for people who are notoriously corrupt, perverted, and almost always implicated in sexual and financial scandals.”

Vigano indicates that he does not think Pope Francis is the valid Roman Pontiff by saying “the one who sits on the Throne”. Therefore, Vigano is a schismatic and a sedevacantist.

To accuse the Roman Pontiff of raging with ruthlessness against the Church is tantamount to accusing Christ himself of either lying in His promise to keep each successor of Peter as a Rock of faith on which the Church is founded, or accusing Christ of being unable to keep that promise.

Vigano: “the ultimate goal that he pursues consists in the demolition of the Catholic Church”.

It is not possible for any Roman Pontiff to even desire or intend or plan to attack, destroy, or corrupt the Church. The Holy Spirit prevents it by prevenient grace, for the sake of the indefectibility of the Church, the promises of Christ concerning the Roman Pontiffs and their divinely-conferred charisms, and our salvation.

Vigano: “Faced with this betrayal by the one who holds the Papacy”

Again, Vigano commits the sin of public formal schism, and he commits the sin of heresy against the dogmas of the indefectibility of the Church and the charism of truth and of never failing faith of the Roman Pontiff.

Now I must point out that, having publicly committed apostasy, heresy, and schism many times over, while at the same time knowing the teachings of the Catholic Church, means that Carlo Vigano has sinned to an extreme degree against the infused theological virtue of faith.

Moreover, his public expressions of extreme malice toward the Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis, toward the Bishops in communion with him, and toward the Church Herself are a severely grave sin against the infused theological virtue of love. And his claims that the successors to the Apostles have apostatized, and that the Church has been infiltrated at the highest levels by evil, and that an anti-Church and an anti-pope (Francis) now lead and teach the faithful are a severely grave sin against the infused theological virtue of hope.

I see nothing left of true Christianity in the public expressions of Carlo Vigano. He no longer has any authority as a Bishop, having lost that authority by public grave sins of apostasy, heresy, and schism. He is in grave danger of losing his salvation. His public sins are very severe, and directly contradict love, faith, and hope. He commits blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (the type proximate to final impenitence) by accusing the Church Herself of being taken over by evil, as if the Church, the body of Christ, did not have the Holy Spirit as Her soul, but instead had a demon.

Finally, Carlo Vigano is causing grave harm to the faithful throughout the world by these public expression against the Pope and the Church and the true faith. And those Catholic media outlets who promote his expressions, as if he were a wise and holy Bishop, instead of warning the faithful against him, are committing formal cooperation with his intrinsically evil sins (described above).

Ronald L. Conte Jr.

Post Script, as for Vigano’s claims of homosexual sins against various leaders in the Church, he repeats every rumor and unsubstantiated claim as if it were fact. It is certain that, given the large number of bishops and priests in the Church, some are committing these types of grave sexual sins. But we cannot trust someone with such extreme malice toward anyone who supports the Pope to be an objective or unbiased witness in such matters. Does Vigano have any direct evidence of these accusations? He repeats the claims of others. The Pope cannot assume that every accusation against every Bishop or Cardinal must be true.