Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (Catholic News Service)
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former nuncio to the United States, has been excommunicated after being found guilty of schism, the Vatican said.
Members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith met July 4 to complete an extrajudicial penal process against Archbishop Vigano, who was accused of “the reserved delict of schism,” the dicastery said in a press release July 5.
“His public statements manifesting 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 are well known,” the dicastery wrote.
“At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Vigano was found guilty of the reserved delict of schism.”
The dicastery thereby declared the archbishop automatically excommunicated in accordance with canon law.
“This decision was communicated to the Most Reverend Vigano on 5 July 2024,” it said.
“The lifting of the censure in these cases is reserved to the Apostolic See,” it added.
The 83-year-old Italian archbishop worked as secretary general at the Vatican’s governing office from 2009 to 2011 before he was named apostolic nuncio to the United States from 2011 until his retirement in 2016. He had previously served as a permanent observer to the Council of Europe and apostolic pro-nuncio to Nigeria before he went back to Rome as an official of the Secretariat of State in 1998.
In a June 20 post on X, the archbishop published a letter he said he received from the dicastery over email informing him of the extrajudicial trial. The letter, signed by Msgr. John Kennedy, secretary for the dicastery’s section for discipline, said the archbishop was summoned to appear at the dicastery’s office June 20 to hear “the accusations and evidence against him regarding the crime of schism of which he is accused.”
The archbishop later said on social media that he refused to go to the office or face the charges since he did not recognize the authority of the dicastery, its prefect or Pope Francis.
Archbishop Vigano is active on social media and writes often on the blog of his association, “Exsurge Domine,” where he has continued to be vocal about his opposition to Pope Francis and Vatican II.
For example, in a 2020 letter written by Archbishop Vigano and published on Inside the Vatican, the archbishop said “it is undeniable that from Vatican II onwards a parallel church was built, superimposed over and diametrically opposed to the true Church of Christ.”
He also wrote in a post on X in November 2023 that Pope Francis’ “incompatibility” with the function of the papacy “confirms his defect of consent in the assumption of the Papacy,” but he said that his comments shouldn’t be taken to mean he shares the opinion of sedevacantists.
He went on to write that he does not want “any ecclesial communion” with the pope or his collaborators but claimed that he remains “in full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church” and the magisterium of the popes.
The Code of Canon Law defines schism as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”
