Archbishop Viganò: In the conservative milieux, we hear it said that Benedict XVI is the “true Pope” and that Bergoglio is an “antipope.”

Viganò: Pope Benedict ‘surrounded himself with inadequate, unreliable or even corrupt collaborators’

Radio Spada: In some articles that appeared on CatholicFamilyNews.com it was noted that your position on the situation of the Church is close to that of Archbishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. From the same source was reported a sentence by you according to which Archbishop Lefevbre himself would be an exemplary confessor of the Faith. Also, in the light of your firm criticism of Vatican II and, on the other hand, of your non-adherence to sedevacantism, it would seem that the approach you promote is very close to that of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X. Can you tell us something about it?

Archbishop Viganò: From many parts of the Catholic world, especially in the conservative milieux, we hear it said that Benedict XVI is the “true Pope” and that Bergoglio is an “antipope.” This opinion is based, on the one hand, on the belief that his Renunciation is invalid (due to the way it was formulated, due to pressure exerted by external forces or the distinction between munus [office] and papal ministerium [ministry]) and, on the other hand, on the fact that a group of progressive Cardinals is said to have tried to have their own candidate elected at the Conclave of 2013, in violation of the norms of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis of John Paul II. Beyond the plausibility of these arguments, which if confirmed could invalidate Bergoglio's election, this problem can only be solved by the Supreme Authority of the Church, when Providence deigns to put an end to this situation of very serious confusion.

Radio Spada: A distinct but connected theme is that relating to the protagonists of the conciliar and post-conciliar season. Let’s stop for a moment on the figure of Ratzinger: the role of the Bavarian theologian both at Vatican II and after is undeniable, albeit with different nuances (we recall that, from 1981 to 2005, he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, from 2005 to 2013 he reigned on the Throne of Peter, since 2013 he is “Pope Emeritus”). For our part, the judgment on the significance of Ratzingerism is certainly negative: under his administration at the CDF, the same deviations that today we see explicitly “flourishing” flourished; as soon as he was elected to the Chair of Peter he removed the tiara from the papal coat-of-arms; he continued on the path of indifferentist ecumenism by renewing the scandalous celebrations in Assisi; he wrote that “Luther’s thought, his entire spirituality, was entirely Christocentric”; in the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum [July 7, 2007] he defined the Mass of all time and the Novus Ordo as two forms of the same rite (when on the contrary they imply two totally different theologies); he then created this unlikely hybrid of the “Pope Emeritus dressed in white” who – leaving aside intentions, which we do not judge – seems to be not only a dangerous misunderstanding but an almost necessary cog in the dualism that animates the current dynamic of ecclesial dissolution. These few examples, which could be followed by many others, are in our opinion revealing of the fact that Ratzinger has always been on the “other side of the fence,” albeit with roles and positions that are not identical. We have already seen your statement on the “beautiful tale of hermeneutics,” but also on other occasions, you have pointed out some problematic aspects of Ratzinger’s thought. We refer in particular to a recent statement on LifeSiteNews in which you argued: “However, it would be desirable that, especially in consideration of the Divine Judgment that awaits him, he definitively distances himself from those theologically incorrect positions – I am referring in particular to those of the Introduction to Christianity – which are still widespread today in universities and seminaries that pride themselves on calling themselves Catholic.” We, therefore, ask you: if you were to summarize your judgment on the thought of the Bavarian theologian, what would you say to our readers? Furthermore: You have had the opportunity to work closely with Benedict XVI, what can you tell us about him on the human level? It is not, mind you, a question about private things, but about the personality that he was able to get to know closely.

Archbishop Viganò: The points you have listed, albeit with some nuances, unfortunately, find me in agreement, not without considerable pain. Many acts of the government of Benedict XVI are in line with the conciliar ideology, of which the theologian Ratzinger was always a staunch and convinced supporter. His Hegelian philosophical approach led him to apply the thesis-antithesis-synthesis scheme in the Catholic context, for example, by considering the documents of Vatican II (thesis) and the excesses of the post-conciliar period (antithesis) things to be reconciled in his famous “hermeneutics of continuity” (synthesis); nor is the invention of the Emeritus Papacy an exception, where between being Pope (thesis) and no longer being Pope (antithesis), the compromise was chosen to remain Pope only in part (synthesis). The same mens [mind, mentality] lay behind the decision to liberalize the traditional liturgy, while flanking it with its conciliar counterpart in an attempt not to upset either the proponents of the liturgical revolution or the defenders of the venerable Tridentine rite.

The problem is therefore of an intellectual, ideological matrix: it emerges every time the Bavarian theologian wanted to give a solution to the crisis that afflicts the Church: on all these occasions his academic formation influenced by the thought of Hegel believed he could put opposites together. I have no reason to doubt that Benedict XVI desired, in his own way, to make a gesture of reconciliation with the hopes of Catholic traditionalism; nor that he is not aware of the disastrous situation in which the ecclesial body finds itself. But the only way to restore the Church is by following the Gospel, with a supernatural gaze and with the awareness that Good and Evil, by God’s decree, cannot be put together in an unreal juste milieu [happy medium] but that they are and remain irreconcilable and opposed, and that serving two masters ends up making them both unhappy.

As for my direct acquaintance with Benedict XVI, I can say that in the years of his Pontificate, in which I served the Church in the Secretariat of State, in the Governorate, and as Nuncio in the United States, I got the idea that he surrounded himself with inadequate, unreliable or even corrupt collaborators, who have largely taken advantage of the “meekness” of his character and of what could be considered as a certain “Stockholm syndrome” [i.e., a syndrome in which a prisoner, in a certain sense, comes to love those who have imprisoned him] especially towards Cardinal Bertone and towards his own personal secretary [G.G.].