Viganò ‘shed a tear’ when I asked him about McCarrick： Renowned Vatican journalist
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Summary
Dr. Robert Moynihan is one of the world s most experienced Vatican journalists, having reported from Rome on the Vatican for 36 years. He is the founder and editor of Inside the Vatican Magazine, and has just released a book, Finding Vigano, analyzing the Archbishop s testimonies and with personal interviews about this great hero of the Church in our day.
Transcript
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I'm very excited to be speaking to my next guest. He is one of the world's most experienced Vatican
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journalists, having reported from Rome on the Vatican for 36 years. He's the founder and editor
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of Inside the Vatican magazine and has just released a book covering Archbishop Carlo Maria
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Vigano, analyzing the Archbishop's testimonies and with personal interviews about this great hero of
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the Church in our day. In all of the world, there is one man most suited to be able to corroborate
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at least some of what Archbishop Vigano has said and revealed. Someone who has been inside the
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Vatican for 36 years, who has interviewed and spoken with at length Popes John Paul II and
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Benedict, countless cardinals and curial officials. A man who is gifted with a great intelligence,
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graduating with highest honors from Harvard and Yale. Someone who has dared to put his whole
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career on the line by releasing this book about Archbishop Vigano. Our next guest for this
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episode of the John Henry Weston Show is Dr. Robert Moynihan. Stay tuned.
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Dr. Moynihan, welcome to the John Henry Weston Show. Thank you for joining us.
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Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
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Dr. Moynihan, it is a great honor and pleasure for me to be speaking with you. We spoke once in the
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Vatican in 2014, I believe it was, and that was a great pleasure too. You are a man of great
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distinction, having reported for decades now on what's been going on inside the Vatican. Welcome.
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Well, thank you very much. It's about half my life.
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Absolutely. Now, that's partially why it's so fascinating that you have now released this book,
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Finding Vigano, which our readers can look down at the bottom of this video and find how to get that
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from 10 books. Just an incredible book. But it's actually most striking that this has come from you.
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Such a distinguished journalist with so many decades of work inside the Vatican, quite literally,
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you know probably more about inside the Vatican than most of the prelates inside the Vatican right
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now. But in the preface of the book, there is right away a challenge mentioned by 10 books and
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also by 10 of yourself that you were cautioned not to do this. If you can explain for us what
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caution that might have been and what effect that might have had.
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There were a number of Vatican officials and Monsignors who said to me,
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think over very carefully whether you should simply not stop.
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Both writing letters about Archbishop Vigano, therefore giving him a platform for his thought
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and writing a book about him, therefore in a sense lending a certain weight and credibility to
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everything that he has said. And I said, I will take into consideration your words,
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but I wish to work in such a way that what the Archbishop has said can be better understood,
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put into context, that the man who has said these things can be better understood.
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And I do not think that we can move forward unless we take the time and effort to understand such
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things and then sift them in the most thoughtful way, in the most charitable way, to come to reasonable
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conclusions about the crisis in our church, the causes of that crisis, and the best way forward.
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And therefore, I went ahead. I did not stop the publication. There were even some considerations for doing that.
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And this took its toll on me, and I lost quite a bit of weight. I'm thin to begin with.
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So the winds of conflict and division have buffeted also me and my heart. And what I have arrived at
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is the conclusion that I need to stay focused and centered on Christ, who saved us, saves me.
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I'm imperfect. I would say Archbishop Viggino is imperfect. I admire him very much. And I know
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I also recognize, and I've met and known, John Paul II, now canonized, St. John Paul II,
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who had difficulties in the Roman Curia, had difficulties guiding the church, stood between
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the United States and Russia as he attempted to bring dignity back to his native, and in a sense,
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conquered Poland, but not going out on all sorts of—excuse me.
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I am so sorry. I'm going to turn this off. And I should have done so before.
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The St. John Paul II was criticized for some of his decisions and some of his, in a sense,
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his lack of government. He traveled around the world, and Vatican officials would say to me,
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even at the time, he is not governing his church. He should stay here in Rome and follow very carefully
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the various activities of the Curia and watch over, like a father, a good father, his family,
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his household. So this is a great saint, but he had critics. Benedict XVI, a very holy man.
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I knew better than I knew John Paul II. I talked with him many times, many interviews,
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many conversations. Sometimes walk through Borgo Pio, I would say, hi, may I walk a few steps with you?
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He says, sure, walk with me. I'm talking about the 1990s, when he was still a cardinal.
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But he now is being criticized, and has always been criticized. The Curial officials would say,
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oh, Benedict, he doesn't understand one thing. And I said, what's that? Power.
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I said, well, maybe that's a good thing. They said, well, in this case, invested as the vicar of Christ,
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with guiding a church of more than a billion people, he's spending his time writing about Christ.
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He's not spending his time governing the church. But that was perhaps the greatest contribution he
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could give. Now we have Pope Francis, whose heart is for the poor. He grew up, was a young boy in Buenos
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Aires. He saw the ghettos and barrios. There's no doubt that he feels deeply the weight on poor people,
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of not having enough money to pay the rent at the end of the month, of being part of a system which can
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be cruel, can take away a house. So this tended in his life to direct him towards this Jesuit principle
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of being a man for others, looking at social justice, never being so deeply trained and deeply
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impressed by the value of doctrinal clarity in giving us a direction for our hearts and minds.
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So we have this particular man with his particular frailties, and we have Archbishop Viganò.
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I felt that his story needed to be told, and I'm still telling it. I'm working on a second book.
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Because it's the journey also of another soul, a very talented, intelligent Italian from a classic
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Italian family, praying the rosary, working hard in that Northern Italy, which produces so many
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fine products, high quality products. Italy is famous. That triangle between Milan, Venice, Parma,
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down to Bologna, that Northern Italy, which in the Renaissance produced so many great
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great scholars and artists. In Viganò's life, he grew up, he entered the service of the church,
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as did his brother Lorenzo. And already as a young seminarian, he saw part of the Second Vatican Council.
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He was in Rome. And then in the late 60s, he was a young auxiliary in a parish in Pavia in Northern Italy.
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And he saw the trends and the currents in Italy, which 25 years earlier had been under Mussolini and
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gone through the Second World War, had been fascist. The Italians have a rich culture and a profound
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character, to be sensitive, to consider God in nature and in art and in sacraments, but also to recognize the time,
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a decade, a half a century, a century keeps passing by. And they bring this to the Roman Curia in a good way,
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eternal Rome. All things pass and change. One pope finishes, another is made. They say they use that phrase.
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It's a very humane attitude. And the strange thing is, even their communists are more humane than most
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communists, although they can have some very ideological communists. But it's always true
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true that handling sacred things can be dangerous for human beings. Jesus was always castigating
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the scribes and Pharisees, who were punctilious about following the law, who were punctilious about
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not breaking the commandments, following all of them. Why did he criticize? Because they lost the
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underlying spirit of love of God and love of neighbor, which he said, these are the two great commandments.
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Because even as they carried out commandment after commandment, their hearts had grown cold
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and closed. And Scripture repeatedly says, what does God require? A contrite heart.
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And knowing that we are all sinners, it's part of our doctrine that when we judge,
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and we judge rightly according to God's law, we nevertheless must leave a lot up to him.
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We must leave the punishment often up to him. And as we start to take sacred things and take control,
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and as the church has tried to do that, it risks becoming pharisaical. It risks becoming rigoristic.
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And this brings us to the present crisis we face today. We must remain faithful to Christ. We have a church
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that is his bride. We have a hierarchy that's been entrusted to carry on. We have a papacy. It's a successor of Christ.
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Christ. I started these a few minutes ago by describing strengths and weaknesses in great
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popes like John Paul II and Benedict, whom I knew personally. I still know Benedict, who is now being
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criticized again for his actions with regard to a community of about 800 or so members called
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Integrate Gemeinde. I knew members of the community. I would see them walking in the streets of Rome.
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And I knew, again, it's a perfect example. These people wanted to devote themselves to God.
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They wanted to follow through in their daily lives and make it integrated, integrated, integrated life,
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not just church on Sunday and secular life all week, but integrated life. But as you follow that path,
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you say, now I have to integrate now. I'm going to get married, not get married. Maybe I talk to my
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spiritual advisor. Spiritual advisor said, no, don't marry that person. From our perspective,
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this is too much. This is giving too much authority and danger of abuse, danger of psychological and
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spiritual abuse. So we Americans, we want freedom. We do have a deep love of God and we want to
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have our freedom be in God's service. This community went forward. Now there's coming reports in the German
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press, and LifeSite has just published something, saying that Benedict was lax in guarding the freedom
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and the faith of these little ones. And he himself, I believe, is saying, yes, I was. I was lax.
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I want, but these are, okay. So I've covered the Vatican, and I have suffered by seeing men,
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including these popes, to whom I had great devotion, do things and say things, as CC
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hesitating over, Benedict hesitated for two years before committing, publishing the most important
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document of his pontificate, Summorum Pontificum, on July 7th, 2007. Seven, seven, seven. So you can
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easily remember. He said, the old liturgy cannot be regarded as evil, as wrong, because for centuries
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it was prayed in the church by great saints and by ordinary washerwomen, grandmothers and
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little children who would pray and understand the holiness and awesomeness of God and the tenderness
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of forgiveness, and therefore carry forward this life of the soul, which we must do so in our time. But
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Benedict said we can do it by recognizing the old liturgy and accepting that we have this
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novus ordo, the new order. These are profound questions. We could discuss just that for hours.
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But Benedict hesitated to do this because people, bishops and cardinals were flying into Rome saying,
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don't do it. Don't do it. Just stick with the Vatican II path. Don't take a step backwards.
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People will misunderstand. People will be rigidly attached. And we will lose that sense of openness
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that we've been trying to cultivate. And he listened for a long time. How are we to judge that? But he made
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the decision. I watched year after year. One of the great experiences was talking just,
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it must have been 1994 with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State, famous now, still alive.
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He was the one who responded to Pope Benedict that morning on February 11th when Benedict resigned.
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And Sodano stands up and says, oh, our hearts were burning within us as we listened to your word. But he
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didn't evaluate what Benedict had said in any way. But Sodano and next to him was Sandri. I saw both of
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them. And I said, I had just had dinner with Eric von Sabantham and Michael Davies, who were very
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interested in the old liturgy and in the traditional liturgical ways. Michael Davies,
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he's famous for his books on likening the New Order to some aspects of Cranmer's Mass, the Protestant
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Reformation in England. So those two, Eric and Michael said, it's been decided that there will be
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permission granted to have altar girls throughout the church. And this had been something people had
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been hesitating on because the Chiarichetto, the altar boy, was considered in some way the very first
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step toward becoming a deacon and then a priest and then a bishop. It was a first tiny step towards
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clerical life, towards sacramental consecration as a priest. So they thought, the more conservative
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Catholics thought this is a dangerous step because we're going to introduce young girls into the
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concept of starting out on that path as well. And then if we don't go through with that, they'll be
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disappointed. But if we go in that direction, we will find a real crisis in our understanding of the
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complementarity of the male and the female, two different roles with equal dignity, equal dignity of soul.
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But Sodano and Sandri, I had already had an appointment to ask about this matter because
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at that time everyone was rumoring that. And so Donald said, well, it's being discussed,
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but it will be no problem. You Americans are so concerned about this because you're so right-wing.
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We Italians regard this as a sort of matter of style and it's just kind of us to invite the girls
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to join the boys in the celebration of the liturgy. He did not have a single inkling in what he said to me
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of any of what I just described of this being perhaps a deception or in some way a confusion.
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No, he was not concerned. I then had a meeting by chance that same week with Cardinal Ratzinger.
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And I said to him, there's a lot of rumors going around they're going to approve this,
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altar girls, the Gerichetta, the female altar servers. And he said,
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well, not yet, because it didn't yet come across my desk. I haven't given my judgment or my prohibition.
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The next morning, the Vatican press office announced that it had been approved.
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And I then said, what does this mean? It means Ratzinger didn't make this decision.
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This is one of many examples of watching how the church at that level, at the level of the hierarchy
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in the Vatican, but also in the entire episcopate functions.
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Some people have a slot and authority that outweighs and goes beyond their official dossier
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of what they should be able to handle. There are cross-hatching roles in which each congregation
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has 20 or 30 or 12 cardinals who come to Rome to be part of the council of that congregation.
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But there's only a few, a handful, interconnected, who wield the greater authority.
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And now the study of who has wielded that authority and on what basis is being made by many people,
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including people like Taylor Marshall with his book, Infiltration.
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And we today are trying to decide who is being selected to make the decisions in the church,
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and to what degree can the census fidelium, the sense of the faithful, overcome the true orthodox faith,
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be preserved, the faith of the simple, can sort of percolate upwards,
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that we can produce priests and bishops and cardinals who will be intransigent in defending the deposit of the faith.
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Or to what extent has there been a type of trendiness that has filtered into the church,
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into the seminaries, into the universities, into the hierarchy in general,
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and now into the College of Cardinals and has reached the throne of Peter?
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These are the questions I'm wrestling with in the hope of giving clarity
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and of defending the bride of Christ, the church, while at the same time recognizing,
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as I've repeated twice now, that each person is fallible and has his strengths and weaknesses,
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There you have, in a summary fashion, the dilemma that confronts me.
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It's an amazing picture you paint. You've been given what very few on earth have,
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the opportunity to meet a lot of the figures, to engage with, to converse with,
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a lot of the figures that really have shaped the church over the past 30 years or so.
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And I'm in that position too, at least, as regards Archbishop Vigano.
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You had the unique opportunity to meet with him, not only once, but frequently over years,
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to discuss these things with him. And he comes across because he's not been known by many people
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at all, really, other than those in the United States who were the bishops and usually friends
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of his, but very few of the laity. But people know him now for his letters and his communications,
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which might seem very strenuous and strong. Yet, in your book, which by the way goes through
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all of his publications, yes, analyzes them, but also interestingly goes through your conversations
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with him. I know not the full ones yet, that's coming in the next book, but also there's some
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very revealing conversations which give you a glimpse of the man that I think few would possess.
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I was particularly referencing your chapter on Vigano's tears. If you can tell us a little
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bit about that, because I think that presents a side of the man that few people really know.
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Well, absolutely, John Henry. And I would say that the critics of Vigano should give at least that
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that space to evaluate some of these aspects before taking a unilateral position.
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There's a development in his thought, a development in his heart.
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I think it's a fascinating development. And I think we all are learning from what he has
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passed through. And what is that? It's a type of conversion from a man who was a good man and known for his
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integrity, known for never taking the shortcut. He was particularly on financial matters in the Vatican
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city-state, regarded as a man of the utmost honor. So that the famous story of, as is typical in Italy,
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the Vatican is in Italy. The Vatican is in Rome. The Vatican is a small, tiny state surrounded by Rome.
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The streets of Rome go right around the walls. You can walk around. It's about a 5k, actually.
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You could jog a 5k basically from the obelisk in St. Peter's Square, go up the wall,
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past the Vatican museums, go to the top where the helicopters land inside the Vatican walls,
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come down the other side, pass by the Domus Santa Marta where the Pope lives now,
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come back to the obelisk, and it's almost exactly 3.0. That's Vatican City.
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Several hundred people live there. Several thousand people live within a mile or five miles and come in
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and out to the Vatican and then to the buildings near the Vatican, which housed the congregations,
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like the congregation for bishops, the congregation for the Synod. So Viganò was given the position
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in around the year 2000, and he kept it to 2011 when he was made nuncio, first under John Paul and then under Benedict,
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to follow all the aspects of maintaining the Vatican City state. He was not the mayor. He was the sort of,
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next to the mayor, the top economic guy. So when they brought in the Christmas tree for
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Christmas time from the Alps on a huge truck, carried it in and set it up, put in a manger scene,
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they would, the Vatican would pay for the tree and the manger scene, and it got to be expensive. It got
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to be several hundred thousand dollars, I think 800,000. So then Viganò said, let's examine this as
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well as many other contracts that the Vatican was engaged in. And he found that he could reduce
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the contract to 400,000. And he managed in the first year to save millions of dollars for the Vatican,
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for the Church. But he made in this process, foes, enemies. And he managed somehow to stay ahead of their
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machinations and their plots against him, all through those years, making the Vatican a sleeker and more
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more transparent operation with regard to many of these contracts for the furnishing of electricity or
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all these different things that a city has to agree on. But Pope Benedict had brought in a man
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at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith named Archbishop Bertone, who was from Genoa, had been
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Archbishop in Genoa, which is on that little curve in northern Italy that heads on to the French Riviera.
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It's a northern Italian city, very proud city, narrow little medieval streets, but right next to the coast,
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it was beautiful. And Bertone stayed on after Benedict became Pope and was made Secretary of State.
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But Bertone was not from the Vatican diplomatic corps, nor from the curial sort of caste that grew up inside
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the system. He was in a way a figure who parachuted in from the north, and he had all sorts of friendships
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and interests. Benedict was writing his books, and he had by his side another German, Archbishop Genswein.
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And he trusted Bertone. He said, you handle the curia as my Secretary of State. People started to come
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to him and said, there's some problems here and there. People are cutting some corners. There's some corruption.
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And you probably should change this man. But Benedict trusted him. And he said,
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there man bleibt, wo er ist. A man stays where he is. So Benedict took the decision and Bertone
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then orchestrated the removal of Viganò. Oh, wow.
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He thought that Viganò was disruptive, was too honest. And so Viganò protested. And around Benedict, this young
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assistant in the office there was receiving the mail, Paolo Gabriele, kind of the butler,
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opening some of the mail, found letters regarding Viganò's protest saying, I'm cleaning up the
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Vatican and you're now trying to remove me and send me to America to become nuncio, which is a very
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prestigious post, but it will make it impossible for me to complete the task I started. Paolo Gabriele
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released these letters to the press. That was vatty leaks. That there are shenanigans going on too.
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But he wanted Pope Benedict in some way to be forced to understand the various
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currents that he, in a way, disliked, even knowing about, trusting this other man who apparently,
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and it would have, we'd have to be fair. I haven't really spoken that much with Bertone,
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so I don't know his defense of what he chose to do. So I, it's not fair of me, but he apparently
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was not as faithful a servant of the Pope as he was of himself and of his other interests.
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And Benedict then finally decided to send Viganò out of the Vatican to Washington.
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And he sent him a note, which I included in the book. It's never been published before. The note said,
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after much reflection, I've decided to send you to America. I know that you have other views,
00:34:00.980
but I believe that you will, in this way, fulfill a providential mission that goes beyond what I
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even can understand. So Viganò told me when I went to meet with him about a year and a month ago,
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he'd been in hiding for a year and he called and said, I'd be willing to talk to you and explain
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why I wrote the testimony, how I see things now. And I asked him about how he was forced out to
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Washington and how he now understood that. He said, you know, I'm beginning to have a sense that Benedict
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was prophetic, that he really, he didn't know, but he was prophesying that I would have a providential
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mission and I'm feeling that I do. And he started to feel this mantle descending on him, not as someone
00:34:57.140
who would cut the budget for the Christmas tree, but someone who would defend the doctrine of the
00:35:04.500
church in a time of trendiness, in a time of superficiality, and in a time of tremendous pressure
00:35:13.300
to become politically correct. And because he had dealt with hard-nosed businessmen,
00:35:20.500
shaving 100,000 or adding 100,000, he was very familiar with that type of thing.
00:35:26.020
He realized that doctrine, in a sense, could also be shaved or inflated. And in this way, we had a man
00:35:36.660
of decision in financial matters and in government, suddenly start to orient himself to the whole
00:35:44.660
question of our doctrine. That is what the turning point was for Viganò. But as he meditated on these
00:35:53.380
things and discussed them, we came one day, I said, so what does the church mean to you? In Rome,
00:36:00.340
they call you the traitor, the Judas, because you've now spoken against corruption, named names.
00:36:07.860
And his eyes got liquid, and he was silent. And then a tear started to fall down his cheeks.
00:36:19.060
He said, the church was my whole life, and it is my whole life. In a way, he was making me understand
00:36:27.380
that he was in the crucible of conscience. What do you do when in your conscience you say,
00:36:36.340
I must speak out against something wrong, but in your heart you also feel, I must remain absolutely
00:36:42.660
faithful to all those to whom I promised my service over decades. Those days that we were together,
00:36:52.020
he was processing all of that. And as he came to the end, actually, there were two occasions,
00:36:59.780
I left for a couple of three weeks, and then I came back and saw him again for several days.
00:37:08.900
Peter. And he did, he did cry, he wept about Francis.
00:37:19.540
About the way, I said, what about Francis? He said, well, when he was elected, and when I first came to
00:37:29.540
talk with him, I was totally committed to giving him the assistance he needed to be Peter.
00:37:38.900
Because I know that Peter always needs assistance. So I listened to what he wanted. And I told him
00:37:46.660
what I think he, what I thought he needed to know. And that's when he told him about McCarrick.
00:37:53.460
And that was the second time when he was speaking about Francis, and how he committed himself at the
00:37:58.500
beginning to his service. And then he, his eyes got watery again, he was silent, there were many silences.
00:38:07.780
And then a tear again came down his cheek. And then there was a third occasion.
00:38:19.860
And he said, McCarrick came to me in the nunciature. And I, because Vigano had been in a desk in Rome in charge of all the Vatican diplomatic service. He had received reports from every nunciature in the world. They'd been checked by somebody, and then they reached his desk. And he would judge serious, not serious.
00:38:50.180
And then send them on up right to the Secretary of State, and then to the Pope.
00:38:53.380
And so he had received reports about McCarrick in the early 2000s. So he had seen this. And he had sent a report in 2006 and 2008. And he said, there's a problem here.
00:39:08.300
There's a cardinal with a beach house. There's five beds. He brings five seminarians. And the first four get the four beds. And then he says, the fifth bed is mine, but you can come join me.
00:39:29.740
And the seminarian would either agree or be faced with the problem of rejecting the cardinal in whose hands his entire ecclesial fate rested.
00:39:48.540
Now, nobody has ever fully studied exactly what happened. The rumors went around from the late 90s that this was happening.
00:39:57.340
That these were friendships, that these were whatever. I don't even know everything that happened. Someone could write to you or write to us and tell us more.
00:40:08.920
There's been no trial. McCarrick has denied the worst types of abuse that we might imagine. He said, no, no, that didn't happen. I was just friendly.
00:40:23.660
Yeah. So we don't know the whole truth. But he was then accused in New York. And on the 20th of June in 2018, they said these are credible allegations for the first time.
00:40:40.220
And then suddenly he was said not to be. Prior to that, there had been this decision by Pope Benedict listening to Bertone and to what Vigano had said.
00:40:51.800
He said, look, what we're going to do is tell McCarrick he has to pray. He has to retire, no longer go publicly and do penance.
00:41:02.800
But there was no turning over of anything to any authority, no criminal action and no trial against him.
00:41:08.840
So Sambi was the nuncio before Vigano. Pietro Sambi, a dear friend of mine, actually.
00:41:20.300
And I actually respected him enormously. And I was shocked when he died.
00:41:30.920
Sambi was, as they negotiated in Rome to eject Vigano and send him to America, they were telling Sambi,
00:41:37.320
now you're going to come back here and you're going to run Vatican finances. You're going to be the Pell.
00:41:44.320
I think Sambi from that position, Sambi was incredible. He was warm hearted. He was smiling. He was strong.
00:41:53.420
He had been in Israel for five years. He knew all about Israel and all about the Vatican's protection of the holy places and agreements with the Israeli government.
00:42:02.200
So he also knew the Middle East. Important to know the Middle East.
00:42:08.320
Then he knew America because he'd been in Washington. I think he might have been a candidate to become Pope.
00:42:14.940
But he had a slight cough and he went for a checkup in his lungs and he thought he was going to go in maybe for an afternoon.
00:42:26.640
His family said, OK, well, we'll talk to you later this week.
00:42:29.880
They said, we're going to have to put you in the bed here. You have an x-ray. You've got a little problem. I think we're going to have to do a little surgery.
00:42:50.780
His family was completely surprised. They didn't have any idea he was ill at all.
00:42:55.240
So he never went back to Rome and he never was a candidate to become Pope.
00:43:02.280
Vigano took his place. But Sambi, a few months before he died,
00:43:07.340
encountered McCarrick in the nunciature in Washington.
00:43:09.680
And he said, McCarrick, Pope Benedict wants you to be very quiet, to pray,
00:43:16.960
and to prepare for your final judgment, prepare your soul.
00:43:24.440
And McCarrick says, no, I have this in plan and that plan. I'm doing it.
00:43:31.920
And Monsignor Lantheon, down the hallway, in Vigano's testimony, reports
00:43:38.100
that he told Vigano, when Vigano shows up a few months later,
00:43:42.900
oh, Archbishop Vigano, I was here a few months ago
00:43:46.500
when Sambi was telling McCarrick that he has to cool it.
00:43:50.420
And there was a huge fight. They were shouting.
00:43:54.640
And Lantheon has confirmed that. Lantheon has now quit.
00:44:00.120
But in Paris, after Vigano's testimony came out in 2018,
00:44:07.280
somebody contacted him and said, is Vigano reliable or not?
00:44:10.620
Did you actually hear that shouting in the hallway?
00:44:16.700
I also want you to know that I don't like to go on lakes and rivers.
00:44:23.700
So if you find my body in many pieces attached to blocks of cement
00:44:28.640
in the bottom of a lake or a river, you'll know that I didn't do it.
00:44:35.000
that maybe there would be some consequences to him
00:44:37.600
for confirming the fact that Sambi and McCarrick
00:44:45.040
had a big fight over some sort of restrictions being placed on him.
00:44:51.780
So then Vigano says, therefore, I called McCarrick in
00:44:57.020
And I said to McCarrick, look, you have to follow these restrictions.
00:45:08.680
And McCarrick says to him, well, I may have made some bad judgments.
00:45:24.220
And then Vigano said, he said, therefore, you must follow these restrictions.
00:45:32.520
And he said, but I was always respectful and kind of him
00:45:37.120
because I wanted him to go through his problem,
00:45:53.380
And at that moment, his eyes, again, he was so deeply affected by his memory
00:46:00.440
in a sense of failing in that conversation with McCarrick
00:46:07.480
Yeah, it is an incredible thing, that deep love that Archbishop Vigano has.
00:46:14.900
Even for those, it's funny, when the first revelations get revealed of McCarrick,
00:46:23.900
some of the people who originally denied everything,
00:46:26.360
then once it became revealed, they were very, very harsh,
00:46:35.020
But yet Vigano, knowing more than just about anybody else about the subject,
00:46:39.440
having even a partial confession from McCarrick himself,
00:46:42.640
has this great loving desire to see the man repent
00:46:58.000
is one born of that love and of a great forgiveness
00:47:02.300
and of charity that goes beyond what most people have.
00:47:05.620
It's the same kind of charity that Pope John Paul II expressed
00:47:10.480
going to visit his own attempted murderer in the prison
00:47:19.460
who comes forward now to defend the faith, to defend the church,
00:47:23.020
and also in a way, and I'd like to hear your take on this,
00:47:31.700
What you have just said is of extreme importance
00:48:09.460
The Greek word logos can mean reason or meaning.
00:48:13.400
So we could say in the beginning was the meaning,
00:48:21.020
When we are physical creatures animated by a mysterious personhood,
00:48:35.200
My formation was that this was the central thing,
00:48:45.220
and this is why the church says the supreme law of the church
00:48:53.240
is to defend the very concept that we have souls.
00:48:56.980
It's considered in polite society something terrible.
00:49:03.120
All they want is easeful deaths for the concept of the soul,
00:49:18.500
which is connected to the very origin of all things in the universe,
00:50:09.260
and the greatest freedom is that we have an eternal dimension,