Abp. Viganò: Christ would not recognize His Church in ‘the sect’ that’s eclipsing the See of Peter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for Life Site News
This rupture, this violent tear, was consummated on the spiritual level at the moment in which the authority of the prelates was secularized, just like what happened in the civil sphere.’
Most Reverend Excellency,
I am writing to you on the occasion of the coming Feast of Christ the King, and I permit myself to share with you a certain fundamental question:
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Is there still any meaning in celebrating and invoking the grace that this liturgical feast so longed for when it was instituted?
If the King of kings and Lord of lords (cf. 1 Tim 6:15; Apoc. 19:16) were to return today in His glory, would He still recognize His Spouse, the Church?
By asking these questions, I will seem irreverent and lacking faith in the promise, “the gates of hell shall not prevail” (Mt 16:19), that resonates as a hope to cling to for those few survivors of the wind of mortal apostasy that has invaded the Church. Well, the provocative tone of these questions summarizes the feeling of confusion of the few remaining faithful, faithful in searching for some reference to the Magisterium, a valid Sacrament, and coherence of life among the shepherds. I turn to you as to a “Voice in the desert” that so many times has illuminated so many lost and disheartened souls.
I wanted to share with you this little story that happened to me:
A few days ago, a lady who brought some donations to the convent said to me: ‘You know, I don’t follow these things very much, but it seems to me that the direction the Church has taken lately is not so good…!’ From the way she spoke, the tone of her voice, I perceived that she was embarrassed for expressing herself in this way to someone whom she believed represented that ‘Church’ that she had just questioned. I could make a great speech to her: my answer was a simple appeal about the need to intensify our personal prayer, leaving the lady in her ignorance and allowing me to ‘identify’ with that ‘church’ that I do not really feel I represent… The sensation was one of great impotence, in the impossibility of being able to give exhaustive and truthful answers. A few minutes earlier I had read the exhortation of Pope Pius XI when, one hundred years ago in his Encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei he had exhorted Catholics about their duty to hasten the return of the social kingship of Christ. A sort of ‘moral duty,’ of a personal and collective commitment.
Is this commitment still valid? And how should we put it into practice if the “Church” is no longer the “Church”?
The letter Ubi Arcano Dei was the beginning of the institution of the Feast of the Kingship of Christ, which took place in 1925 precisely in order to avoid the mess that we have experienced in the recent years. In that encyclical, the Kingship of Christ was understood as the remedy to secularism and to all of those errors that – at a distance of one hundred years – have been generously welcomed by many prelates, bishops, cardinals, and even he who presents himself as the representative of Christ and who under this insignia has promoted the ruinous acceleration of the flock “deceptively” entrusted to him.
