ARCHBISHOP VIGANO SUES THE VATICAN BANK

This has been one of those weeks that has seemed virtually impossible to keep up with the flood of news - and hence articles that people have sent - clogging my email "inbox."  From the latest scuttlebutt on the war between Russian and The Ukraine, or the outbreak of hostilities (again) between India and Pakistan or the recent ceasefire thereto and, to the sudden, unusually quick election of an American Pope after the odds against his chances of doing so were running about 300 to 1, this has been a blur of a week to try to keep up with.

However, our story today concerns that sudden election of Leo XIV (Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost). I'll come straight out and take that dive off the end of the twig of the tree of high octane speculation and say I suspect that "the fix was in", and that the "fix" was probably brokered by the same interests and people behind the pressures on Benedict XVI to resign, and the election of Bergolio as his successor. Those interests one might - with some nods to license and latitude - characterize as progressive, globalist, and definitely non-traditionalist. The new pope's "influences" suggest he is a continuation of the policies and episcopates of John-Paul II, Benedict XVI (with Leo XIV's studies on canon law), and Bergolio. What he is not is Pius X, XI, or XII.

But there may be - and in my opinion, is - another factor perhaps lurking in the background of Cardinal Prevost's sudden and unexpected election as the bishop of Rome, and it's Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the former apostolic nuncio (ambassador) to the United States. Readers here may or may not be familiar with His Excellency Archbishop Vigano, but for those who are not, he has been or rather was a consistent thorn in the side of the Bergolio papacy, for he was a constant critic of Bergolio's real or suggested departures from Roman Catholic confessional orthodoxy. As an example of just a few of his public criticisms of the departed Pope Francis, Archbishop Vigano criticized the late Pope's public blessings of a pagan idol or icon, his seeming willingness to bend over backwards to every religion except the beleagured traditionalists in his own Church who simply wanted to be able to continue to use the traditional Tridentine Latin Mass, and so on.  To be sure, there are many other issues that Vigano criticized Francis for, and these are but a few, and to be sure, the plight of Roman Catholic traditionalists has been a constant thorn in the side of the papacy ever since the disastrous "reforms" and "results" of the Second Vatican Council. They - the traditionalists - do have a point; after all,  the Roman Church tolerates and allows and uses a wide variety of eastern rites, all of them under various local modifications, and yet has waged a tireless and unrelenting war against its own Gregorian rite.  It even allows traditionalist Anglicans and Episcopalians who have become Roman Catholic in the wake of their own churches' rejection of their traditional confession to use their rites. So why can't it tolerate the continued use of the Gregorian Rite? It is a question for which I have no good answer, and have never heard any good answer from any papal clergyman. Usually all that is served up is what I call "the theology of the artful dodge and the unanswered question."

In that context Archbishop Vigano became the latest spokesman for that wing of the Roman church which has been increasingly marginalized: that wing that wants the traditional rite and a defense of traditional Roman Catholic confessional orthodoxy, following a long line of other hierarchs that spoke up - in some case quietly, in some cases loudly - against the Vatican II "reforms":  Giuseppi Cardinal Siri, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, and of course, the well-known Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. But Vigano had another concern, and it lies at the center of my speculations about what may be going on in Rome, for at one point he was appointed by the late Pope Francis to lead inquiries into the allegations of galloping financial impropriety at the Vatican Bank, or the Institute for Religious Works. One might recall that it was this institution that was at the center of investigations by the Papacy going all the way back to the short-lived Roman episcopate of Albino Cardinal Luciani (Pope John-Paul I), who incidentally was the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice prior to becoming Pope. Let that connection sink in for a moment. Luciani/John-Paul I was involved in investigations of Masonic penetration into the Curia, and quietly undertaking investigations of the Vatican Bank.

Everyone knows the extremely suspicious circumstances under which John-Paul I was found dead, after only 33 days as Bishop of Rome.  His successor John Paul II did not go anywhere near the Vatican Bank problem, but rather, reappointed its head, American Bishop Paul Marcinkus, and then when the heat became to much to ignore, raised him to the rank of archbishop, and made him personally responsible for papal security! Vigano was moved from his Vatican Bank investigations to the nunciature to the US, a move that, in Vatican politics, amounts to an exile. Of course eventually Francis had had enough of Vigano's public criticism, and simply excommunicated the archbishop. It was the Bergolian version of  "Bad Carlo! Bad archbishop! Be a good boy, go lay down, and play with your toy!"

But just as the conclave that was about to elect Leo XIV was about to get under way, the Archbishop - who had not gone away and laid down, much less playing with any toys - dropped a bombshell, and I am convinced it is one reason for the sudden election of ousider Leo XIV after about a day and a half (if that!) of conclave; Archbishop Vigano filed a lawsuit in the Roman civil courts (i.e., not a Vatican  court), against the Vatican bank. Here's two versions of the story as shared by our regular readers S.D., and V.T.:

Viganò sues Vatican Bank, implicates Cardinal Parolin

Note well what the second article states:

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò issued a press release saying he has sued the Vatican Bank for appropriating assets meant for charity and that Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin knows about the alleged impropriety.

PRESS RELEASE of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

"I gave a mandate to Prof. Attorney AUGUSTO SINAGRA with Legal Firm in Rome in Viale Gorizia n. 13, to file a lawsuit with the Civil Court of Rome against the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) of the Vatican, in the person of the previous Directors General and in the person of the current Director General, Dr. Gian Franco Mammì, along with a Prelate of the Roman Curia.

"The lawsuit concerns an undue appropriation of very valuable assets deposited at the IOR that were intended to be used for works of charity.

"The Civil Court of Rome will be asked for an international rogatory so that the competent Vatican Authorities order the preventive and precautionary seizure of the aforementioned assets.

"Cardinal Pietro Parolin, among the most favored papal appointees, has been fully aware of the story and all its implications for some time, also on the impetus of the significant endorsement given to him by the Freemason Prof. Giuliano Di Bernardo, former Grand Master of the Great East Lodge of Italy.

"His Eminence is well informed about the facts and all the events that in his time, and even recently, saw him involved and questioned.

"I considered it my duty to proceed through the courts to request the return of said goods following a repeated denial by Cardinal Parolin to make reparation outside of court of the serious damage that has been caused to me.

"The Cardinal will be – along with many others – also called as a witness to confirm what is already incontrovertibly proven from documents in my possession and alsopossessed by Cardinal Parolin himself.

/s/+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America

Viterbo, May 5, 2025

S. Pii V Papæ et Confessoris

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Parolin's support within the upcoming conclave had to have very quickly collapsed, for it would not do to have the Vatican Bank's dirty laundry - along with its connections to Masonry - aired in open secular court, especially if some of that laundry concerned a newly elected Bishop of Rome.

Indeed, I suspect that this goes a long way to explain the election of Leo XIV. For one thing, even though Cardinal Prevost was himself a member of the Curia and appointed by Francis to head the powerful Dicastery for Bishops (basically, the Department of Personnel for the appointment of diocesan bishops for the entire Roman Catholic Church), his appearance as an "outsider" was needed, and indeed, the odds against him being elected prior to the conclave were running, as has been mentioned, around 300 to 1.  But more importantly, as this case winds its way through the Italian civil judiciary (and whomever may be appointed as the "international rogatory"), one is able to catch the faint whiff of the same financial forces at work since the very founding of the Vatican bank itself. Those forces, needless to say, are not inclined to support the Roman Catholic traditionalists.

In other words, it's "business as usual" for the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church, but that business is about to get very murky, and very public over the next few years. Every effort will be made to keep it out of the media's eyes and away from public scrutiny, but it will, eventually, come out.

As for the besieged Roman Catholic traditionalists, for whom I have great empathy, I am reminded only of those first four verses of the 18th chapter of the Apocalypse of St. John.

See you on the flip side...

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