Next, Vigano responded to an article in the New York Times dated August 28, 2018 (remember that Vigano's 7,000-word open letter was released online on August 25, 2018), about what Pope Francis reportedly told Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean sexual abuse victim, in April 2018. But the NYT article does not explain why Pope Francis discussed Kim Davis and Vigano with Cruz. (We should note that the same Vatican officials who arranged for Pope Francis to meet with Cruz in April 2018 could also have arranged with Cruz to say that the pope had said this to him.)
As we might expect, Vigano tells us his side of the story about Pope Francis' private meeting on September 24, 2015, with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who had refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples -- as a conscientious objector to the state law allowing same-sex marriage.
But let's look at what Vigano says.
Vigano says, "At the beginning of our meeting, on the evening of September 23, [2015,] I told the Pope that I gave the Pope a one-page memo summarizing the Davis case (here attached in Italian and English). The Pope immediately appeared in favor of such an initiative, but added that the meeting would have political implications, and said, 'I don't understand these things, so it would be good for you to hear [Vatican Secretary of State] Cardinal [Pietro] Parolin's opinion.'"
"'I don't understand these things.'" If Pope Francis said these exact words, he may have simply meant that he has to rely on his staff to help him avoid making political mistakes.
According to Vigano, two of Parolin's underlings approved of the arrangement, because Parolin had retired for the night. According to Vigano, he then told Pope Francis "of the positive opinion of his [Parolin's] two principal collaborators," and the pope then agreed to meet with Davis. (I assume that Parolin's "two principal collaborators" told him in the morning what they had agreed to the night before. According to Vigano, Davis was scheduled to be in D.C. to receive an award from the Family Research Council, a Protestant group.)
As many of us can remember, the news of Pope Francis' meeting with Davis broke. The official spokespersons for the Vatican appeared not to have been told about the pope's meeting. Consequently, the Vatican did not spin the story about the pope's meeting well.
According to Vigano, Cardinal Parolin, whose "two principal collaborators" had agreed to the idea of the pope meeting with Davis, phoned him and told him, "'You must come immediately to Rome because the Pope is furious with you!'"
According to Vigano, he met with Pope Francis on October 9, 2015, "for almost an hour." Vigano says, "As soon as my audience with the Pope was over, I immediately phoned Cardinal Parolin, and said, 'The Pope was so good with me for troubling with coming to Rome, and he lavished continuous praise on me for the way I had organized his visit to the USA, and for the incredible reception he received in America. He never expected such a welcome.' At which point Cardinal Parolin replied, 'It's not possible, because with me he was furious about you.'"
However, if Vigano's account of the events with Cardinal Parolin's "two principal collaborators" is essentially accurate, then Pope Francis should not have been furious with Vigano, but with Parolin's "two principal collaborators" and ultimately with Parolin himself (assuming that his two collaborators told him what they had agreed to).
In the meantime, the journalist Rachel Donadio published the article "The Power Play Driving the Latest Vatican Crisis" in the Atlantic (dated August 31, 2018):
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/vigano-letter-pope-francis/569074/
Donadio used to work as a journalist reporting on the Vatican. She says, "The allegation [that Vigano makes about homosexual networks in the Vatican] may be news to some, but certainly won't come as a surprise to anyone who's spent any time at the Vatican. Whether the names Vigano singles out in the Vatican hierarchy are 'active homosexuals,' as he alleges, there is no doubt that homosexuality is rampant in the Vatican, in spite of Catholic doctrine forbidding it."
Note that she stops well short of saying how many, if any, are active homosexuals.
Speaking of Catholic doctrine, Catholic doctrine forbids married couples from using artificial contraception. But many married couples have used artificial contraception.
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