The John-Henry Westen Show - Viganò ‘shed a tear’ when I asked him about McCarrick： Renowned Vatican journalist

00:00:00.120 I'm very excited to be speaking to my next guest. He is one of the world's most experienced Vatican

00:00:05.580 journalists, having reported from Rome on the Vatican for 36 years. He's the founder and editor

00:00:11.540 of Inside the Vatican magazine and has just released a book covering Archbishop Carlo Maria

00:00:17.300 Vigano, analyzing the Archbishop's testimonies and with personal interviews about this great hero of

00:00:23.480 the Church in our day. In all of the world, there is one man most suited to be able to corroborate

00:00:30.340 at least some of what Archbishop Vigano has said and revealed. Someone who has been inside the

00:00:37.240 Vatican for 36 years, who has interviewed and spoken with at length Popes John Paul II and

00:00:42.640 Benedict, countless cardinals and curial officials. A man who is gifted with a great intelligence,

00:00:48.040 graduating with highest honors from Harvard and Yale. Someone who has dared to put his whole

00:00:53.320 career on the line by releasing this book about Archbishop Vigano. Our next guest for this

00:01:00.080 episode of the John Henry Weston Show is Dr. Robert Moynihan. Stay tuned.

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00:01:54.840 Dr. Moynihan, welcome to the John Henry Weston Show. Thank you for joining us.

00:01:59.380 Thank you, John Henry, for having me.

00:02:01.660 Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.

00:02:04.600 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.

00:02:09.960 Dr. Moynihan, it is a great honor and pleasure for me to be speaking with you. We spoke once in the

00:02:16.120 Vatican in 2014, I believe it was, and that was a great pleasure too. You are a man of great

00:02:22.740 distinction, having reported for decades now on what's been going on inside the Vatican. Welcome.

00:02:30.860 Well, thank you very much. It's about half my life.

00:02:34.840 Absolutely. Now, that's partially why it's so fascinating that you have now released this book,

00:02:44.280 Finding Vigano, which our readers can look down at the bottom of this video and find how to get that

00:02:49.440 from 10 books. Just an incredible book. But it's actually most striking that this has come from you.

00:02:58.200 Such a distinguished journalist with so many decades of work inside the Vatican, quite literally,

00:03:03.300 you know probably more about inside the Vatican than most of the prelates inside the Vatican right

00:03:08.840 now. But in the preface of the book, there is right away a challenge mentioned by 10 books and

00:03:17.280 also by 10 of yourself that you were cautioned not to do this. If you can explain for us what

00:03:24.600 caution that might have been and what effect that might have had.

00:03:28.100 There were a number of Vatican officials and Monsignors who said to me,

00:03:38.640 think over very carefully whether you should simply not stop.

00:03:43.980 Both writing letters about Archbishop Vigano, therefore giving him a platform for his thought

00:03:54.700 and writing a book about him, therefore in a sense lending a certain weight and credibility to

00:04:03.400 everything that he has said. And I said, I will take into consideration your words,

00:04:10.600 but I wish to work in such a way that what the Archbishop has said can be better understood,

00:04:21.400 put into context, that the man who has said these things can be better understood.

00:04:27.720 And I do not think that we can move forward unless we take the time and effort to understand such

00:04:41.760 things and then sift them in the most thoughtful way, in the most charitable way, to come to reasonable

00:04:50.780 conclusions about the crisis in our church, the causes of that crisis, and the best way forward.

00:05:01.600 And therefore, I went ahead. I did not stop the publication. There were even some considerations for doing that.

00:05:12.600 And this took its toll on me, and I lost quite a bit of weight. I'm thin to begin with.

00:05:22.740 So the winds of conflict and division have buffeted also me and my heart. And what I have arrived at

00:05:35.760 is the conclusion that I need to stay focused and centered on Christ, who saved us, saves me.

00:05:47.440 I'm imperfect. I would say Archbishop Viggino is imperfect. I admire him very much. And I know

00:05:54.040 many of our listeners very much admire him.

00:05:57.040 I also recognize, and I've met and known, John Paul II, now canonized, St. John Paul II,

00:06:08.720 who had difficulties in the Roman Curia, had difficulties guiding the church, stood between

00:06:15.380 the United States and Russia as he attempted to bring dignity back to his native, and in a sense,

00:06:22.120 conquered Poland, but not going out on all sorts of—excuse me.

00:06:33.880 I am so sorry. I'm going to turn this off. And I should have done so before.

00:06:40.600 The St. John Paul II was criticized for some of his decisions and some of his, in a sense,

00:06:49.380 his lack of government. He traveled around the world, and Vatican officials would say to me,

00:06:57.540 even at the time, he is not governing his church. He should stay here in Rome and follow very carefully

00:07:05.220 the various activities of the Curia and watch over, like a father, a good father, his family,

00:07:14.580 his household. So this is a great saint, but he had critics. Benedict XVI, a very holy man.

00:07:25.300 I knew better than I knew John Paul II. I talked with him many times, many interviews,

00:07:34.340 many conversations. Sometimes walk through Borgo Pio, I would say, hi, may I walk a few steps with you?

00:07:40.020 He says, sure, walk with me. I'm talking about the 1990s, when he was still a cardinal.

00:07:46.900 But he now is being criticized, and has always been criticized. The Curial officials would say,

00:07:53.540 oh, Benedict, he doesn't understand one thing. And I said, what's that? Power.

00:08:00.100 I said, well, maybe that's a good thing. They said, well, in this case, invested as the vicar of Christ,

00:08:10.420 with guiding a church of more than a billion people, he's spending his time writing about Christ.

00:08:16.900 He's not spending his time governing the church. But that was perhaps the greatest contribution he

00:08:25.460 could give. Now we have Pope Francis, whose heart is for the poor. He grew up, was a young boy in Buenos

00:08:37.860 Aires. He saw the ghettos and barrios. There's no doubt that he feels deeply the weight on poor people,

00:08:48.500 of not having enough money to pay the rent at the end of the month, of being part of a system which can

00:08:54.420 be cruel, can take away a house. So this tended in his life to direct him towards this Jesuit principle

00:09:02.740 of being a man for others, looking at social justice, never being so deeply trained and deeply

00:09:12.900 impressed by the value of doctrinal clarity in giving us a direction for our hearts and minds.

00:09:23.060 So we have this particular man with his particular frailties, and we have Archbishop Viganò.

00:09:34.260 I felt that his story needed to be told, and I'm still telling it. I'm working on a second book.

00:09:47.540 Because it's the journey also of another soul, a very talented, intelligent Italian from a classic

00:09:59.060 Italian family, praying the rosary, working hard in that Northern Italy, which produces so many

00:10:08.020 fine products, high quality products. Italy is famous. That triangle between Milan, Venice, Parma,

00:10:21.300 down to Bologna, that Northern Italy, which in the Renaissance produced so many great

00:10:27.460 great scholars and artists. In Viganò's life, he grew up, he entered the service of the church,

00:10:37.620 as did his brother Lorenzo. And already as a young seminarian, he saw part of the Second Vatican Council.

00:10:47.940 He was in Rome. And then in the late 60s, he was a young auxiliary in a parish in Pavia in Northern Italy.

00:10:56.500 And he saw the trends and the currents in Italy, which 25 years earlier had been under Mussolini and

00:11:04.820 gone through the Second World War, had been fascist. The Italians have a rich culture and a profound

00:11:13.940 character, to be sensitive, to consider God in nature and in art and in sacraments, but also to recognize the time,

00:11:28.980 a decade, a half a century, a century keeps passing by. And they bring this to the Roman Curia in a good way,

00:11:39.060 eternal Rome. All things pass and change. One pope finishes, another is made. They say they use that phrase.

00:11:49.780 It's a very humane attitude. And the strange thing is, even their communists are more humane than most

00:11:59.220 communists, although they can have some very ideological communists. But it's always true

00:12:08.820 true that handling sacred things can be dangerous for human beings. Jesus was always castigating

00:12:22.020 the scribes and Pharisees, who were punctilious about following the law, who were punctilious about

00:12:31.940 not breaking the commandments, following all of them. Why did he criticize? Because they lost the

00:12:42.100 underlying spirit of love of God and love of neighbor, which he said, these are the two great commandments.

00:12:48.180 Because even as they carried out commandment after commandment, their hearts had grown cold

00:12:54.420 and closed. And Scripture repeatedly says, what does God require? A contrite heart.

00:13:03.060 And knowing that we are all sinners, it's part of our doctrine that when we judge,

00:13:12.500 and we judge rightly according to God's law, we nevertheless must leave a lot up to him.

00:13:20.820 We must leave the punishment often up to him. And as we start to take sacred things and take control,

00:13:26.260 and as the church has tried to do that, it risks becoming pharisaical. It risks becoming rigoristic.

00:13:36.420 And this brings us to the present crisis we face today. We must remain faithful to Christ. We have a church

00:13:44.980 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.

00:13:55.140 Christ. I started these a few minutes ago by describing strengths and weaknesses in great

00:14:03.860 popes like John Paul II and Benedict, whom I knew personally. I still know Benedict, who is now being

00:14:11.860 criticized again for his actions with regard to a community of about 800 or so members called

00:14:21.780 Integrate Gemeinde. I knew members of the community. I would see them walking in the streets of Rome.

00:14:27.940 And I knew, again, it's a perfect example. These people wanted to devote themselves to God.

00:14:35.620 They wanted to follow through in their daily lives and make it integrated, integrated, integrated life,

00:14:42.420 not just church on Sunday and secular life all week, but integrated life. But as you follow that path,

00:14:50.100 you say, now I have to integrate now. I'm going to get married, not get married. Maybe I talk to my

00:14:55.060 spiritual advisor. Spiritual advisor said, no, don't marry that person. From our perspective,

00:15:01.700 this is too much. This is giving too much authority and danger of abuse, danger of psychological and

00:15:09.620 spiritual abuse. So we Americans, we want freedom. We do have a deep love of God and we want to

00:15:18.500 have our freedom be in God's service. This community went forward. Now there's coming reports in the German

00:15:25.620 press, and LifeSite has just published something, saying that Benedict was lax in guarding the freedom

00:15:35.060 and the faith of these little ones. And he himself, I believe, is saying, yes, I was. I was lax.

00:15:42.740 I want, but these are, okay. So I've covered the Vatican, and I have suffered by seeing men, 1.00

00:15:53.700 including these popes, to whom I had great devotion, do things and say things, as CC

00:16:06.340 hesitating over, Benedict hesitated for two years before committing, publishing the most important

00:16:14.500 document of his pontificate, Summorum Pontificum, on July 7th, 2007. Seven, seven, seven. So you can

00:16:23.540 easily remember. He said, the old liturgy cannot be regarded as evil, as wrong, because for centuries

00:16:34.020 it was prayed in the church by great saints and by ordinary washerwomen, grandmothers and

00:16:41.140 little children who would pray and understand the holiness and awesomeness of God and the tenderness

00:16:50.340 of forgiveness, and therefore carry forward this life of the soul, which we must do so in our time. But

00:16:59.940 Benedict said we can do it by recognizing the old liturgy and accepting that we have this

00:17:07.540 novus ordo, the new order. These are profound questions. We could discuss just that for hours.

00:17:14.740 But Benedict hesitated to do this because people, bishops and cardinals were flying into Rome saying,

00:17:22.900 don't do it. Don't do it. Just stick with the Vatican II path. Don't take a step backwards.

00:17:30.420 People will misunderstand. People will be rigidly attached. And we will lose that sense of openness

00:17:39.060 that we've been trying to cultivate. And he listened for a long time. How are we to judge that? But he made

00:17:46.580 the decision. I watched year after year. One of the great experiences was talking just,

00:17:56.260 it must have been 1994 with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State, famous now, still alive.

00:18:07.620 He was the one who responded to Pope Benedict that morning on February 11th when Benedict resigned.

00:18:13.940 And Sodano stands up and says, oh, our hearts were burning within us as we listened to your word. But he

00:18:20.580 didn't evaluate what Benedict had said in any way. But Sodano and next to him was Sandri. I saw both of

00:18:30.420 them. And I said, I had just had dinner with Eric von Sabantham and Michael Davies, who were very

00:18:40.980 interested in the old liturgy and in the traditional liturgical ways. Michael Davies,

00:18:45.220 he's famous for his books on likening the New Order to some aspects of Cranmer's Mass, the Protestant

00:18:54.900 Reformation in England. So those two, Eric and Michael said, it's been decided that there will be

00:19:07.940 permission granted to have altar girls throughout the church. And this had been something people had

00:19:13.060 been hesitating on because the Chiarichetto, the altar boy, was considered in some way the very first

00:19:23.620 step toward becoming a deacon and then a priest and then a bishop. It was a first tiny step towards

00:19:31.220 clerical life, towards sacramental consecration as a priest. So they thought, the more conservative

00:19:39.540 Catholics thought this is a dangerous step because we're going to introduce young girls into the 1.00

00:19:48.020 concept of starting out on that path as well. And then if we don't go through with that, they'll be

00:19:53.060 disappointed. But if we go in that direction, we will find a real crisis in our understanding of the

00:19:59.700 complementarity of the male and the female, two different roles with equal dignity, equal dignity of soul.

00:20:10.900 But Sodano and Sandri, I had already had an appointment to ask about this matter because

00:20:17.940 at that time everyone was rumoring that. And so Donald said, well, it's being discussed,

00:20:27.220 but it will be no problem. You Americans are so concerned about this because you're so right-wing.

00:20:33.780 We Italians regard this as a sort of matter of style and it's just kind of us to invite the girls 1.00

00:20:42.180 to join the boys in the celebration of the liturgy. He did not have a single inkling in what he said to me

00:20:52.820 of any of what I just described of this being perhaps a deception or in some way a confusion.

00:21:01.460 No, he was not concerned. I then had a meeting by chance that same week with Cardinal Ratzinger.

00:21:10.020 And I said to him, there's a lot of rumors going around they're going to approve this,

00:21:14.980 altar girls, the Gerichetta, the female altar servers. And he said,

00:21:22.580 well, not yet, because it didn't yet come across my desk. I haven't given my judgment or my prohibition.

00:21:33.780 The next morning, the Vatican press office announced that it had been approved.

00:21:38.900 Oh, gosh.

00:21:40.660 And I then said, what does this mean? It means Ratzinger didn't make this decision.

00:21:46.900 This came from the Secretary of State.

00:21:48.900 Oh, my goodness.

00:21:50.340 This is one of many examples of watching how the church at that level, at the level of the hierarchy

00:21:59.220 in the Vatican, but also in the entire episcopate functions.

00:22:04.820 Some people have a slot and authority that outweighs and goes beyond their official dossier

00:22:16.740 of what they should be able to handle. There are cross-hatching roles in which each congregation

00:22:27.860 has 20 or 30 or 12 cardinals who come to Rome to be part of the council of that congregation.

00:22:38.980 But there's only a few, a handful, interconnected, who wield the greater authority.

00:22:46.020 And now the study of who has wielded that authority and on what basis is being made by many people,

00:22:58.180 including people like Taylor Marshall with his book, Infiltration.

00:23:04.420 And we today are trying to decide who is being selected to make the decisions in the church,

00:23:11.940 and to what degree can the census fidelium, the sense of the faithful, overcome the true orthodox faith,

00:23:22.900 be preserved, the faith of the simple, can sort of percolate upwards,

00:23:28.420 that we can produce priests and bishops and cardinals who will be intransigent in defending the deposit of the faith.

00:23:39.220 Or to what extent has there been a type of trendiness that has filtered into the church,

00:23:46.820 into the seminaries, into the universities, into the hierarchy in general,

00:23:53.780 and now into the College of Cardinals and has reached the throne of Peter?

00:23:59.540 These are the questions I'm wrestling with in the hope of giving clarity

00:24:06.020 and of defending the bride of Christ, the church, while at the same time recognizing,

00:24:15.540 as I've repeated twice now, that each person is fallible and has his strengths and weaknesses,

00:24:23.700 including the very popes that we most honor.

00:24:27.700 There you have, in a summary fashion, the dilemma that confronts me.

00:24:32.180 Yeah, yeah.

00:24:33.780 It's an amazing picture you paint. You've been given what very few on earth have,

00:24:40.260 the opportunity to meet a lot of the figures, to engage with, to converse with,

00:24:44.900 a lot of the figures that really have shaped the church over the past 30 years or so.

00:24:51.620 And I'm in that position too, at least, as regards Archbishop Vigano.

00:24:56.740 You had the unique opportunity to meet with him, not only once, but frequently over years,

00:25:02.900 to discuss these things with him. And he comes across because he's not been known by many people

00:25:10.580 at all, really, other than those in the United States who were the bishops and usually friends

00:25:15.460 of his, but very few of the laity. But people know him now for his letters and his communications,

00:25:22.820 which might seem very strenuous and strong. Yet, in your book, which by the way goes through

00:25:29.780 all of his publications, yes, analyzes them, but also interestingly goes through your conversations

00:25:36.980 with him. I know not the full ones yet, that's coming in the next book, but also there's some

00:25:42.180 very revealing conversations which give you a glimpse of the man that I think few would possess.

00:25:47.620 I was particularly referencing your chapter on Vigano's tears. If you can tell us a little

00:25:54.740 bit about that, because I think that presents a side of the man that few people really know.

00:26:00.740 Well, absolutely, John Henry. And I would say that the critics of Vigano should give at least that

00:26:09.860 that space to evaluate some of these aspects before taking a unilateral position.

00:26:23.620 There's a development in his thought, a development in his heart.

00:26:30.100 I think it's a fascinating development. And I think we all are learning from what he has

00:26:42.260 passed through. And what is that? It's a type of conversion from a man who was a good man and known for his

00:26:55.380 integrity, known for never taking the shortcut. He was particularly on financial matters in the Vatican

00:27:07.540 city-state, regarded as a man of the utmost honor. So that the famous story of, as is typical in Italy,

00:27:21.380 the Vatican is in Italy. The Vatican is in Rome. The Vatican is a small, tiny state surrounded by Rome.

00:27:27.780 The streets of Rome go right around the walls. You can walk around. It's about a 5k, actually.

00:27:33.700 You could jog a 5k basically from the obelisk in St. Peter's Square, go up the wall,

00:27:40.020 past the Vatican museums, go to the top where the helicopters land inside the Vatican walls,

00:27:45.220 come down the other side, pass by the Domus Santa Marta where the Pope lives now,

00:27:50.100 come back to the obelisk, and it's almost exactly 3.0. That's Vatican City.

00:27:58.260 Several hundred people live there. Several thousand people live within a mile or five miles and come in

00:28:06.100 and out to the Vatican and then to the buildings near the Vatican, which housed the congregations,

00:28:12.180 like the congregation for bishops, the congregation for the Synod. So Viganò was given the position

00:28:20.500 in around the year 2000, and he kept it to 2011 when he was made nuncio, first under John Paul and then under Benedict,

00:28:35.780 to follow all the aspects of maintaining the Vatican City state. He was not the mayor. He was the sort of,

00:28:43.780 next to the mayor, the top economic guy. So when they brought in the Christmas tree for

00:28:51.060 Christmas time from the Alps on a huge truck, carried it in and set it up, put in a manger scene,

00:29:00.420 they would, the Vatican would pay for the tree and the manger scene, and it got to be expensive. It got

00:29:06.900 to be several hundred thousand dollars, I think 800,000. So then Viganò said, let's examine this as

00:29:13.620 well as many other contracts that the Vatican was engaged in. And he found that he could reduce

00:29:21.300 the contract to 400,000. And he managed in the first year to save millions of dollars for the Vatican,

00:29:32.740 for the Church. But he made in this process, foes, enemies. And he managed somehow to stay ahead of their

00:29:45.780 machinations and their plots against him, all through those years, making the Vatican a sleeker and more

00:29:56.420 more transparent operation with regard to many of these contracts for the furnishing of electricity or

00:30:08.260 all these different things that a city has to agree on. But Pope Benedict had brought in a man

00:30:17.060 at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith named Archbishop Bertone, who was from Genoa, had been

00:30:23.700 Archbishop in Genoa, which is on that little curve in northern Italy that heads on to the French Riviera.

00:30:32.580 It's a northern Italian city, very proud city, narrow little medieval streets, but right next to the coast,

00:30:39.300 it was beautiful. And Bertone stayed on after Benedict became Pope and was made Secretary of State.

00:30:50.100 But Bertone was not from the Vatican diplomatic corps, nor from the curial sort of caste that grew up inside

00:30:57.780 the system. He was in a way a figure who parachuted in from the north, and he had all sorts of friendships

00:31:04.660 and interests. Benedict was writing his books, and he had by his side another German, Archbishop Genswein.

00:31:15.620 And he trusted Bertone. He said, you handle the curia as my Secretary of State. People started to come

00:31:23.220 to him and said, there's some problems here and there. People are cutting some corners. There's some corruption.

00:31:28.500 And you probably should change this man. But Benedict trusted him. And he said,

00:31:34.020 there man bleibt, wo er ist. A man stays where he is. So Benedict took the decision and Bertone

00:31:45.860 then orchestrated the removal of Viganò. Oh, wow.

00:31:50.420 He thought that Viganò was disruptive, was too honest. And so Viganò protested. And around Benedict, this young

00:32:11.380 assistant in the office there was receiving the mail, Paolo Gabriele, kind of the butler,

00:32:17.300 opening some of the mail, found letters regarding Viganò's protest saying, I'm cleaning up the

00:32:27.140 Vatican and you're now trying to remove me and send me to America to become nuncio, which is a very

00:32:34.580 prestigious post, but it will make it impossible for me to complete the task I started. Paolo Gabriele

00:32:44.580 released these letters to the press. That was vatty leaks. That there are shenanigans going on too.

00:32:53.860 But he wanted Pope Benedict in some way to be forced to understand the various

00:33:02.020 currents that he, in a way, disliked, even knowing about, trusting this other man who apparently,

00:33:11.700 and it would have, we'd have to be fair. I haven't really spoken that much with Bertone,

00:33:18.180 so I don't know his defense of what he chose to do. So I, it's not fair of me, but he apparently

00:33:27.940 was not as faithful a servant of the Pope as he was of himself and of his other interests.

00:33:34.660 And Benedict then finally decided to send Viganò out of the Vatican to Washington.

00:33:44.980 And he sent him a note, which I included in the book. It's never been published before. The note said,

00:33:50.420 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

00:34:10.100 even can understand. So Viganò told me when I went to meet with him about a year and a month ago,

00:34:21.060 he'd been in hiding for a year and he called and said, I'd be willing to talk to you and explain

00:34:26.420 why I wrote the testimony, how I see things now. And I asked him about how he was forced out to

00:34:33.220 Washington and how he now understood that. He said, you know, I'm beginning to have a sense that Benedict

00:34:40.740 was prophetic, that he really, he didn't know, but he was prophesying that I would have a providential

00:34:47.700 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.

00:37:06.820 And he was becoming stronger.

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.

00:38:13.460 And it had to do with then Cardinal McCarrick.

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.

00:39:44.080 This is the reason we consider it an abuse.

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. 0.69

00:42:43.680 Some problem.

00:42:44.420 And he never came out. He died.

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.

00:43:00.160 That was Sambi.

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.

00:43:29.320 And they were shouting.

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.

00:43:52.360 I could hear him in the corridor.

00:43:54.640 And Lantheon has confirmed that. Lantheon has now quit.

00:43:57.640 I don't know what he's doing.

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?

00:44:12.780 He said, yes, I did.

00:44:14.380 And he said, now that I'm confirming that,

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.

00:44:32.940 In other words, he was saying that he feared

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

00:44:55.500 after having that conversation.

00:44:57.020 And I said to McCarrick, look, you have to follow these restrictions.

00:45:03.400 You did this about the seaside house.

00:45:08.680 And McCarrick says to him, well, I may have made some bad judgments.

00:45:15.940 Yes, there was a seaside house.

00:45:18.220 Yes, there were seminarians with me there.

00:45:20.640 He has the sharing of bed.

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,

00:45:42.120 to pass through his problem.

00:45:44.820 That was what my heart desired.

00:45:47.040 I didn't want a public execution.

00:45:50.780 I wanted him to repent.

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

00:46:04.480 that once again, he shed a tear.

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,

00:46:21.140 and there's a lot of people in the know,

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,

00:46:32.440 you know, basically killed a man.

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

00:46:48.800 and face his creator in repentance.

00:46:52.060 It's a truly Catholic attitude.

00:46:54.700 And the emotion you described that he presents

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

00:47:15.180 and giving him forgiveness.

00:47:16.520 It's an incredible thing, this heart of a man

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,

00:47:27.600 in a way to defend Francis himself.

00:47:31.700 What you have just said is of extreme importance

00:47:35.320 I totally agree.

00:47:38.900 The idea of the soul is the central concept

00:47:42.980 that we are not just a 97 sense of chemicals,

00:47:47.980 briefly and by chance here,

00:47:52.260 but there is meaning.

00:47:54.520 There is reason to our lives.

00:47:56.620 And the Greek word is logos.

00:47:59.060 When John's gospel begins,

00:48:01.140 in the beginning was the word,

00:48:02.560 and the word was with God,

00:48:03.800 and the word was God.

00:48:04.640 That's the beginning of the gospel of John,

00:48:06.460 and he's referring to Christ, the word of God.

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,

00:48:17.100 and the meaning was with God,

00:48:19.320 and the meaning was God.

00:48:21.020 When we are physical creatures animated by a mysterious personhood,

00:48:30.840 which we call the soul,

00:48:32.480 we have an eternal destiny.

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

00:48:48.120 is the salvation of souls.

00:48:50.580 But the supreme law also of our society

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,

00:49:07.000 and they say, we will then have peace.

00:49:10.020 You don't have any transcendental horizon.

00:49:13.920 That's pie in the sky.

00:49:15.280 You have no profound ground of being

00:49:18.500 which is connected to the very origin of all things in the universe,

00:49:22.280 the almighty God creator.

00:49:25.060 But our faith is that we are connected.

00:49:29.040 We are willed to exist,

00:49:32.380 and therefore we are in a moral universe

00:49:35.780 where we have to choose.

00:49:37.380 This is why we are greater than any computer.

00:49:41.740 No computer is any able,

00:49:44.080 and people say this can be overcome.

00:49:47.480 No computer, however, I disagree, right?

00:49:49.320 I've never been persuaded.

00:49:52.000 Computers are programmed.

00:49:54.200 They do what they are programmed to do.

00:49:56.380 We are free.

00:49:58.200 But all of our social leadership,

00:50:00.800 all of the politically correct,

00:50:04.540 mouthing the word freedom,

00:50:05.980 would like to take that freedom from us,

00:50:09.260 and the greatest freedom is that we have an eternal dimension,

00:50:12.200 an eternal soul.

00:50:14.140 There's a writer named Walker Percy.

00:50:16.000 I studied his work.

00:50:16.960 I met him.

00:50:18.440 I wrote my senior thesis in college,

00:50:20.280 at Harvard College,

00:50:21.580 on the writing of Walker Percy

00:50:23.360 and the predicament of modern man.

00:50:26.280 And what was the predicament?

00:50:29.840 A quotation that he put in front of his book

00:50:32.700 The Message in the Bottle.

00:50:37.780 It's a great work by Walker Percy.

00:50:39.560 It's about semiotics and the meaning of words

00:50:41.800 and how the meaning of words is a first step

00:50:44.580 towards the meaning of the faith, the logos.

00:50:48.620 The very fact that we use words

00:50:50.020 show that we're on a level of meaning.

00:50:52.980 Christ is meaning incarnate,

00:50:54.980 the word incarnate.

00:50:56.400 Well, the quotation is this,

00:51:01.080 so low they had fallen

00:51:03.020 that they no longer considered themselves

00:51:06.840 beings with sufficient dignity

00:51:08.940 even to be damned.

00:51:11.520 In other words, 0.97

00:51:16.100 we are like soap bubbles

00:51:20.420 with no profound dignity

00:51:22.860 if we don't have this moral dimension.

00:51:26.220 Yes and no.

00:51:27.120 I choose yes.

00:51:28.160 I choose to sacrifice.

00:51:30.260 All love comes from sacrifice.

00:51:32.360 Christ's sacrifice redeemed the universe.

00:51:35.920 Your sacrifice as a father,

00:51:37.460 anything that would impede

00:51:41.160 your carrying out your role,

00:51:43.780 you sacrifice.

00:51:45.140 And if you don't,

00:51:46.940 you harm your role.

00:51:48.700 Each of us has to.

00:51:50.780 Sacrifice produces love,

00:51:53.500 produces life.

00:51:55.420 You get up at two or three in the morning

00:51:57.440 to give your child who's crying

00:51:59.260 maybe some milk to drink.

00:52:02.920 You take time to instruct them.

00:52:05.340 You even within limits

00:52:08.580 will direct through even

00:52:10.720 you're going to have to be punished for this

00:52:14.060 so that you form them.

00:52:16.120 You're forming a soul.

00:52:18.280 But our society,

00:52:19.720 because it has no concept

00:52:20.820 that we have souls,

00:52:22.400 allows us to run

00:52:23.500 a kind of free path

00:52:25.340 to fall into addiction,

00:52:27.540 to fall into every sort.

00:52:29.920 Okay.

00:52:30.960 You are free to choose.

00:52:32.480 This is dereliction of paternity

00:52:35.460 and dereliction of maternity.

00:52:37.920 And the ultimate maternal

00:52:39.440 is Mary and is the church.

00:52:42.180 The church is the teacher of mankind

00:52:44.600 and says,

00:52:46.120 you're going to end up in misery

00:52:47.420 if you take this path.

00:52:48.880 All genealogy is here to do

00:52:55.180 is to save souls,

00:52:56.580 to protect them

00:52:57.440 from falling in

00:52:58.920 to a type of unrepentant despair,

00:53:03.620 that there is any meaning,

00:53:06.000 there is any possibility

00:53:07.260 of God's forgiveness.

00:53:09.560 Along these lines,

00:53:10.720 Francis has sometimes

00:53:12.120 said good and important things,

00:53:14.860 but Vigano also has said

00:53:17.280 good and important things.

00:53:19.180 I have wished,

00:53:21.160 I have long wished

00:53:22.120 that they could meet together

00:53:23.740 and talk

00:53:24.340 and one could forgive the other

00:53:26.580 and Francis could say,

00:53:28.260 I would like to be the Peter

00:53:30.440 that I was elected to be.

00:53:32.740 Vigano is saying,

00:53:33.760 you've become a successor of Peter

00:53:36.400 that is produced

00:53:37.840 by the Sangalan mafia

00:53:40.080 and therefore you are falling short

00:53:42.600 of the very vocation

00:53:43.660 to which you are called.

00:53:45.060 Now these are heavy words.

00:53:48.040 Some may be astonished

00:53:50.320 that I dare to speak them,

00:53:52.260 but having watched

00:53:54.420 the problems of John Paul II,

00:53:57.500 the problems of Benedict

00:53:58.480 and now this pontificate,

00:54:01.340 having a great desire

00:54:02.640 to stand against the trendy

00:54:04.900 annihilation of souls

00:54:07.260 that the modernists

00:54:09.720 and the trendiness

00:54:11.300 and the trendiness

00:54:11.320 of pop psychology

00:54:13.940 which dominates our time,

00:54:18.780 I am hoping

00:54:20.380 to make a contribution

00:54:21.820 to the defense

00:54:23.020 of the faith,

00:54:25.080 the defense of the soul,

00:54:26.340 defense of human beings

00:54:27.720 and to the possible repentance

00:54:30.340 and arrival at beatitude

00:54:34.200 of all who have fallen short.

00:54:38.120 I think this is the Christian vocation.

00:54:41.760 I tried to carry it out

00:54:43.600 in my writing.

00:54:45.020 Absolutely.

00:54:46.480 Very, very beautiful.

00:54:47.860 I, if I might say

00:54:48.940 in closing, Dr. Monaghan,

00:54:52.240 you know,

00:54:52.900 I was told,

00:54:55.720 as you might know,

00:54:56.580 of many of Archbishop Vigano's

00:54:59.740 revelations

00:55:00.520 before they went public.

00:55:02.480 I heard them

00:55:03.940 and he said,

00:55:05.460 look into these.

00:55:06.600 He wasn't public with them yet

00:55:07.840 so there was no way

00:55:08.580 to use him as a source

00:55:10.980 and yet it was impossible

00:55:14.020 as you can imagine

00:55:15.340 because where do you go?

00:55:17.940 But in all the world,

00:55:20.300 honestly,

00:55:20.780 I believe in all the world,

00:55:22.480 there was one person

00:55:24.800 who could probably corroborate

00:55:28.160 better than just about anyone else

00:55:30.040 much of Vigano's testimony

00:55:31.800 and it happened to be you.

00:55:34.600 A journalist

00:55:35.440 who has been there

00:55:37.040 for decades,

00:55:38.500 who's been able to meet,

00:55:40.160 greet, speak with,

00:55:41.160 converse with,

00:55:41.680 and learn from

00:55:42.760 many of the figures

00:55:44.680 whom Vigano reveals

00:55:45.820 in his writings

00:55:46.660 for whom most of us are,

00:55:49.160 you know,

00:55:49.340 if we know a lot about it,

00:55:50.780 are just merely a figure

00:55:52.000 who we learned

00:55:52.660 a little bit about.

00:55:53.860 You've had the unique opportunity

00:55:55.760 to be able to

00:55:57.700 at least be on the way

00:55:59.780 to corroborating

00:56:00.840 any parts of his testimony

00:56:02.660 like no one else ever could.

00:56:05.760 In a way,

00:56:07.500 I'm not meaning to denigrate

00:56:09.480 your career at all,

00:56:11.620 but in a way,

00:56:12.660 I think you were chosen

00:56:13.440 for this specific role

00:56:15.240 and the fact that it's

00:56:16.980 cost you so much,

00:56:18.500 I think,

00:56:19.280 is only greater evidence of that.

00:56:21.220 On behalf of Lifesite,

00:56:23.580 on behalf of Catholics everywhere,

00:56:25.220 I want to thank you

00:56:25.960 for what you've done,

00:56:26.720 this great contribution,

00:56:27.720 I believe,

00:56:28.040 to the Church.

00:56:30.920 Thank you, John Henry.

00:56:35.200 I'm just a humble servant

00:56:37.340 in the vineyard of the Lord,

00:56:38.820 as Cope Benedict said

00:56:42.160 when he came out

00:56:43.140 on the loge

00:56:43.900 of the first words he spoke.

00:56:45.280 He said that's what he was.

00:56:47.680 And he said in his first speech

00:56:51.720 something I'd like to repeat.

00:56:53.040 Please pray for me

00:56:55.740 that I do not flee

00:56:57.540 for fear of the wolves.

00:57:01.180 Amen.

00:57:01.920 Well, let me,

00:57:03.020 on behalf of our viewers,

00:57:05.600 say that we will pray for you,

00:57:07.480 Dr. Moynihan.

00:57:08.360 And I very much look forward

00:57:10.900 to having you again on the show

00:57:12.400 and going through with you

00:57:14.680 much of what you have

00:57:16.540 to give to us,

00:57:18.560 to the whole Catholic world.

00:57:19.860 Again, thank you for joining us

00:57:21.060 in this episode

00:57:21.660 of the John Henry Weston Show.

00:57:23.420 God bless you.

00:57:24.700 And God bless all of you.

00:57:26.080 And we'll see you next time.

00:57:30.640 Hello, this is John Henry Weston.

00:57:32.420 I'd like to invite you

00:57:33.440 to subscribe to the

00:57:34.640 John Henry Weston Show

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00:57:42.200 Thanks again for watching.

00:57:43.700 And may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - November 10, 2020

Viganò ‘shed a tear’ when I asked him about McCarrick： Renowned Vatican journalist

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