Today’s New Facts I Learned About the Palace Coup

So I’m, like, blissfully unaware of how the complexities of the Vatican work as it maintain relationships with the various countries in which the Church exists.  For example, I just learned this yesterday when a reader wrote:

OK. This is weird.

I did not know that local ordinaries have no authority over a Cardinal. This article quotes a canon lawyer saying that Cardinals answer only to the Pope or his representative, the Nuncio. Apparently, local bishops have no control over their retired predecessors.

So if sanctions were, in fact, imposed upon McCarrick by Pope Benedict, it would have been up to the Nuncio to impose and enforce those sanctions. The Nuncio from 2011 – 2016 being Archbishop Vigano in whose name the 11 page letter accusing Pope Francis was published Saturday night.

Vigano either did not enforce the mysterious sanctions during his term in DC or they didn’t exist because McCarrick certainly didn’t reign in his travel and public appearances and was very visible at Papal events with Benedict present prior to his resignation.

Now I”m really confused. Am I to believe that Vigano wrote a letter to the world accusing Francis while exposing his own very considerable dereliction of duty? ?? This Italian soap opera needs a better script writer next time . . .

“As the archbishop of Washington, where McCarrick lived, Wuerl presumably would have known about any restrictions on McCarrick’s ministry, though it would have actually been up to Vigano and his predecessor to impose and enforce them.

“The only ground for Cardinal Wuerl to challenge the ministry of Archbishop McCarrick would have been information from Archbishop Vigano or other communications from the Holy See,” said a statement from the Washington archdiocese. “Such information was never provided.”

Canon lawyer Kurt Martens concurred.

“Cardinals are exempt from the jurisdiction of the local ordinary,” or bishop, Martens said. “That’s why a nuncio has to step in on behalf of the Holy Father. A local bishop has no authority over other bishops. You can’t control your predecessor.”

This now appears simple. If Vigano’s claim is true, there should be, in his files, Vatican files, McCarrick’s files and Wuerl’s files paperwork documenting this supposed Double Secret Probation.  Vigano says, “1 All the memos, letters and other documentation mentioned here are available at the Secretariat of State of the Holy See or at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C.” Let’s see it. Put up or shut up.

And then, assuming that paperwork exists, let’s see the explanation for why Vigano, who was the guy responsible for enforcing Double Secret Probation never warned the cops or the public that the guy for which he bore principle responsibility was a predator, never stopped him from basically doing as he pleased, and only now is talking about all this.  When the accuser’s own brother calls him a liar, it does give you pause:

Throughout his power struggle, Archbishop Viganò had been writing urgent appeals to Benedict to stay in the Vatican.

He said he needed to stay because his brother, a Jesuit biblical scholar, was sick and needed care, and he accused Cardinal Bertone of breaking his promise to promote him to the rank of cardinal.

In 2012, when he was already in the United States as nuncio, or ambassador, the letters started appearing in leaks eventually pinned on the pope’s butler. The scandal consumed the Vatican and prompted intense blowback.

But Archbishop Viganò’s brother, Lorenzo Viganò, told Italian journalists that his brother “lied” to Benedict that he had to remain in Rome “because he had to take care of me, sick.” To the contrary, he said he had lived in Chicago and was fine and hadn’t talked to his brother in years over an inheritance dispute.

Also, this looks more and more Palace Coup-y:

Coupled with the instantaneous screams of RESIGN from the Right Wing Culture Warriors before anybody even knew what was happening, this is starting to stink like a day old fish.

Me: I’m still saying what I’ve been saying: “Evidence. Fact.  Documentation.  Let’s see it.”  But this Panic du Jour Stampede crap is garbage, especially coming from the guy who protected McCarrick and directed by a confluence of figures and media outlet with a loooong history of hating Francis’ guts.