Pope Francis' accuser turns up the pressure
The archbishop who accused Pope Francis of covering up a cardinal’s sexual misconduct has escalated his offensive with new, detailed accusations that put increasing pressure on a pontiff who the archbishop and his supporters say has misled the faithful and should resign.
The accuser, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, initially said he would turn off his phone and disappear into hiding for fear of his safety. But he then offered new accounts in conservative Roman Catholic news outlets.
In a new letter published late Friday by the conserva- tive website LifeSiteNews, the archbishop gave his version of events leading up to the pope’s controversial Septem- ber 2015 meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same- sex marriage licenses. His description contradicted the Vatican’s own account of that private meeting, maintaining that Francis’ lieutenants lied to the public about the
encounter, which threatened to eclipse the pope’s entire
trip to the United States that month.
A letter by Viganò made public last weekend alleged
that the Vatican hierarchy was complicit in covering up accusations that Cardi- nal Theodore McCarrick had sexually abused seminarians
and that Pope Francis knew about the abuses years before they became public. It also said that rather than punishing the cardinal, Fran-
cis empowered him to help choose powerful American bishops.
Viganò has aligned himself
with a conservative group of powerful prelates, in both the Vatican and the United States, who have seized on the clerical sex abuse scandal to try to damage Francis and his agenda. They believe
the pope is abandoning the church’s rules and traditions through his shift away from culture-war issues like abortion in favor of an empha- sis on inclusion, including toward gays, whom Viganò
and his allies blame for pedo- philia in the church.
The archbishop writes that he was spurred to weigh in again by a New York Times article this past week quoting a Chilean abuse survivor, Juan Carlos Cruz. Cruz said Francis had told him that Viganò sneaked Davis into the Vatican Embassy in Washington for a private meeting in 2015 and that the pope did not know who she was or why she was contro- versial.
Cruz recalled the pope saying to him, “I was horrified and I fired that nuncio,” or papal ambassador — a reference to Viganò, who was
the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States.
Viganò writes in the new letter: “One of them is lying: either Cruz or the pope? What is certain is that the pope knew very well who Davis was, and he and his close c oll a borators had approved the private audi-
ence.” Viganò did not return a request for comment Saturday. But in the new letter, he lays out in detail his version of events in which he says he personally briefed the pope on Sept. 23, 2015.