The Vatican announced on July 5, 2024 that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former nuncio to the United States, has been excommunicated for the canonical crime of schism.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said that Viganò’s public statements demonstrated “his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council.”
The extrajudicial penal process, conducted on July 4, concluded with Viganò being found guilty. This process allows for a summary judgement without a full trial when evidence is clear.
Viganò, who served as apostolic nuncio to the U.S. from 2011 to 2016, had been summoned to Rome to face the charges. He refused to attend, saying he did not recognize the Dicastery’s authority. “I regard the accusations against me as an honor,” Viganò wrote in a June 20 post, where he described the charges as indicative of the “ideological, theological, moral, and liturgical cancer” of Vatican II.
The 83-year-old archbishop’s excommunication is effective immediately.
“The lifting of the censure in these cases is reserved to the Apostolic See,” the Dicastery said.
Photo credit: George Martell CC BY-ND 2.0 via Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Flickr
