Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: Hæc omnia tibi dabo
Mt 7:20
Introduction
The present crisis in the Church is theological, not canonical, in nature. Moreover, this is not just one crisis among many in the Church’s history, but an unprecedented crisis of Authority, because it is precisely Authority that is undergoing a subversion that until sixty years ago was unimaginable within the Catholic Church. Indeed, if Authority, when exercised for good, is certainly the most suitable instrument for ensuring the good governance of the institution it presides over, it can also become an equally effective instrument for destroying it when those who exercise it sever their bond of obedience to God, who is the supreme guarantor of Authority.[1]
This is what the Jacobins did in 1789, and this is what the proponents of the conciliar revolution repeated in 1965: illegitimately seizing Authority to force subjects to obey unjust orders, aimed at a subversive plan. And both the Jacobins and the Modernists availed themselves not only of the active collaboration of their accomplices and the inaction of cowards, but also of the consent of those who obeyed in good faith and of a mass of people progressively induced to accept any change in the name of obedience.[2]
The idealization of authority
In the past few weeks, “conservatives” such as Riccardo Cascioli, Luisella Scrosati, Daniele Trabucco, and Giovanni Zanone have argued that both laypeople and clergy, faced with the crisis of the Catholic Hierarchy, should not adopt forms of resistance against wicked Superiors; nor should they question their Authority, since it emanates directly from Our Lord. They maintain that the unworthiness of a bishop or pope does not undermine the legitimacy of their authority, but this may be true only in the case of personal unworthiness that does not involve the exercise of authority itself. Authority, however, cannot be legitimately exercised outside its given boundaries, much less against its own purposes or against the will of the Divine Legislator. A bishop who knowingly cooperates with an unjust purpose through acts of governance undermines the legitimacy of those acts and his own authority, precisely because they are posited in fraudem legis.[3]
The idealistic and unrealistic vision of the authors cited, according to which Authority does not lose its legitimacy even when its orders are aimed at evil, highlights the logical short circuit between the reality of heretical popes and bishops—whether formal or material, it matters little: it is in any case unprecedented—and the theory of an Authority that is somehow immune from heresy and the evil intentions of those who hold that Authority.
A systemic crisis
Those who persist in judging individual facts without considering the evident coherence that binds them all together and the overall picture that emerges from them are distorting reality by misrepresenting it. This is a crisis that has lasted for sixty years, always in the same direction, always with the connivance of the authorities, always contradicting the same articles of faith and upholding the same previously condemned errors. Those responsible for this crisis are all united by the subversive desire to seize and maintain power to achieve their own goals. And as proof that the deep state and the deep church act in concert, it is enough to see how the architects of this subversion in the ecclesiastical sphere act in a mirror image of their counterparts in the civil sphere, even borrowing their vocabulary and techniques of mass manipulation. The evidence of the disastrous results obtained by the popes and conciliar bishops has not induced them to retrace their steps and repair the damage done, but on the contrary, we see them obstinately continue along the same path, confirming their malice and premeditation, that is, their mens rea. [4]
We find ourselves in a situation of extremely grave institutional conflict, from which it emerges that the majority of bishops in authority—without a shadow of a doubt—act with the determined and voluntary intention of committing illicit acts against the good of the Church and souls, fully aware of the consequences. If these individuals had no intention of committing evil—that is, if they were acting in good faith—they would not persist in repeating the same errors, pursuing the same results. Nor would they seek by every means to induce the faithful and priests to renounce what the Holy Church has taught for centuries, making them embrace what She has condemned and punished with the most severe penalties.
The acceptance of fraud
We therefore have a Hierarchy composed of traitorous bishops and popes who demand from their faithful not only an inert silence in the face of the worst scandals of its members, but also the enthusiastic acceptance and sharing of this betrayal, according to that esoteric principle that the Satanist Aleister Crowley summarized at the beginning of the twentieth century: “Evil must hide in plain sight, for the laws of the universe dictate that those who are deceived consent to their own deception.”
This is the modus operandi of the devil and his servants, which we find confirmed in the narrative of the temptations to which Satan subjects Our Lord in the desert: “All this I will give you,” says the Evil One to Christ, “if you will fall down and worship me” (Mt 4:9). In claiming to be worshipped as God, Satan first demands acceptance of the fraud, that is, the premise—“All this I will give you”—which is absolutely false, since Satan cannot give away what does not belong to him. If, absurdly, Our Lord had prostrated Himself before Satan and worshipped him, He would not have received from him even a grain of desert dust, and this exchange would have been revealed as a fraud. For this reason, the Lord responds to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve’” (Mt 4:10). With these words, Our Lord reveals the identity of the tempter and his deceptions. Even in Eden, tempting Eve, the Serpent had promised the First Parents that they would become sicut dii (Gen 3:5). They knew full well that Satan would not be able to make them like gods and that they would have to answer to God for their proud disobedience, but despite this they consented to the lie of the Evil One as if it were true, making themselves responsible for the subversion of Good and Evil and acting as if God were not omnipotent and capable of punishing them. This is, ultimately, the ὕβρις, the pride that drives man to defy God by choosing to commit sin, which results in the νέμεσις, that is, the inevitable punishment that strikes those who have violated the divine order by exceeding the limits imposed by God.
The “Revelation of Method”
The historian and social engineering expert Michael A. Hoffman has approached the same topic from a different perspective, identifying a hidden elite that uses manipulative techniques to control the masses. It seeks not only to seize power, but also to wage psychological warfare that transforms reality into a magical, alchemical ritual (and in this it coincides with Crowley’s words). This elite no longer hides everything, but now deliberately reveals parts of its plan (hence the term “Revelation of Method”), as an act of humiliation of its subjects and affirmation of its own supremacy. Social psychology studies confirm that this cruel game of subjugating and dominating its victims serves to provoke cognitive dissonance, that state of psychological discomfort that occurs when we are faced with two conflicting statements or facts, as happened, for example, when health authorities falsely claimed that the experimental gene serum was “safe and effective” while simultaneously demanding criminal immunity for the inoculating doctors. or when we heard Jorge Bergoglio say that “God is not Catholic.” This cognitive dissonance, this perception of a contradiction in terms, is intentional, because it demoralizes us (we are aware of our impotence), because it induces implicit consent (a passive consent, as if to say: “I’ll show you what I do, and you will not do anything about it, so you must agree”), and finally because it leads us to accept a despotic power (even as it mocks the masses, strengthening its psychological control over us).[5]
The “cognitive dissonance” and “gaslighting” of conservatives
We should therefore not be surprised if these techniques of mass manipulation are also used in the ecclesiastical sphere, with the aim of provoking the same cognitive dissonance among the members of the faithful, the same demoralization, the same extorted consensus, the same acceptance of authority that flaunts contradiction but demands obedience. Consider the paradox of Leo, who declared religious freedom [6] a human right on the basis of Vatican II and at the same time canonized Blessed Bartolo Longo, who in his writings condemned religious indifferentism and the concept of religious freedom; or who presides over ecumenical meetings with Muslims while at the same time canonizing Blessed Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan, an Armenian bishop martyred by Muslims for refusing to apostatize from the true Faith.
It should also come as no surprise that La Nuova Bussola behaves exactly as social psychology textbooks predict in these cases, stubbornly denying the contradiction, even when it is evident, in a veritable gaslighting operation [7]: “What you saw never happened.” Even the use of AI-generated videos or images becomes a tool of destabilization, because they contribute to eroding the sensitive basis of knowledge of reality, making it impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood and effectively erasing the very notion of “real” by replacing it with “verisimilitude.” Appearance thus replaces substance, simply because, being conveyed by the image that appears on our cell phones or computers, we cannot know whether what seems true to us is really true or merely seems so. How can we not see in this new phenomenon an attack with which Satan challenges, with his theatrical artifices and his special effects, the truth of God which is simplex, without folds?
These are tests of the masses intended to prove people’s devotion to the synodal religion, just as happens in the civil sphere with the health religion or the green religion. And it is no different to ask the faithful to accept the protestantized mass of Paul VI as a condition of getting permission to attend the Tridentine Mass, which is the antithesis of the Novus Ordo. Even the “excommunication” that Jorge Bergoglio inflicted on me reveals a huge contradiction: on the one hand, I was declared schismatic for denouncing the same errors that all Popes up to and including Pius XII have condemned; on the other, true heretics and schismatics are admitted to communicatio in sacris with those who condemn me, without any canonical consequences. The message is clear: “We can show you the contradiction between our words and our actions, and you will do nothing. You will accept both the lie and the proof of it.”
Every accepted absurdity weakens the capacity of the faithful and the clergy to discern effectively how to responsibly obey their Pastors. If our Faith is not strong and convinced, this leads to a form of apathy towards every new provocation. It is a form of ritual humiliation that functions no longer through secrecy, but through blatant ostentation, especially when obedience to the Authority that issues abusive and even criminal orders is demanded as a sacrifice of one’s very rationality, as an immolation of the will through a perverted concept of authority and obedience. If the Authority of the Hierarchy, up to its highest levels, is responsible for this psychological manipulation of the faithful aimed at perpetuating its power in order to demolish the Church, to whom should priests and laity turn if they hope to see those guilty of such betrayal condemned? To those same manipulative heretics, entrenched in Rome and in all the organs and institutions of the Catholic Church? It’s not surprising that too many priestly vocations are being lost and that many faithful have given up or abandoned religious practice. This is the desired and planned result of this cruel bloodbath.
The “master stroke” of Satan
The devil seeks to gain our allegiance to evil not through deception, but by leading us to accept the lie with which he defines evil as good, and to accept the fiction through which he presents good as evil. The masterstroke of Satan consists in this: in obtaining from us an irrational assent, even in the face of evidence of fraud and subversion that we recognize as such but which, in an act of mad suicidal annihilation, we accept as if they were divinely revealed truths. For Catholics, Faith is never irrational: rationabile sit obsequium vestrum, says Saint Paul (Rom 12:1), because God is the author of Faith and reason, and there can be no contradiction in Truth. Satan, on the other hand, being a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44), cannot help but disguise his deceptions with fraud. He demands from us not rational adherence, but superstitious consent, an act of faith in reverse, in which the intellect’s assent to evident errors and heresies is motivated not by the authority of a true God, but by the usurpation of that authority by a rebellious, lying creature, whom we know wants to deceive and ruin us. Satan wants us to abdicate reason and even the sensus fidei, transforming the act of faith into a mad apostasy.
The absolutization of obedience
Absolutizing obedience, stripping it of the necessary coherence it presupposes among all the subjects of the hierarchical body in which it is exercised [8], means handing over to the vicarious authority of the Hierarchy a power that the supreme Legislator never granted it: namely, the faculty to legitimately legislate against the will of the Legislator himself and to the detriment of the faithful. Here we are not speaking of accidentally erroneous orders, or of individual bishops abusing their authority in an ecclesiastical context in which virtue is encouraged and sin condemned and punished. Here we are speaking of an entire hierarchical system that has succeeded—in the Catholic Church as in public affairs—in seizing power, obtaining recognition and obedience from its subjects through the use of coercive means.
And that’s not all. The absolutization of obedience towards authority also ends up being de-responsibilizing: it is a convenient alibi offered to the many, too many Don Abbondios in filleted robes or clerical suits and cufflinks, careful not to displease anyone, so as to “avoid polarizations” – according to Leo’s request – in order to benefit from the favors of the powerful who are known to be unjust but to whom they pay homage out of cowardice or self-interest.
Conclusion
Sacred Scripture, the Fathers, the mystics, and the Blessed Virgin Mary herself at Fatima have warned us of an apostasy the Church will face in the end times. How can we expect this apostasy to materialize, if not through false shepherds in place of good shepherds, and pseudo-Christs and false prophets in place of Christ and the Prophets? How could the elect be drawn into deception by heretics and schismatics (Mt 24:24), if not by such heretics obtaining positions of authority in the Church? “But the Church is indefectible,” some petulantly repeat. And indeed she is: despite the vast majority of her bishops harassing her and acting in concert with the enemies of Christ.
The Catholic Church is indefectible in the sense that She can never fail in her mission to guard and transmit the Truth revealed by God, nor can she fall into definitive error in her Faith and Morals. And this, in fact, does not happen even when a heretical and corrupt Hierarchy seeks to obscure or disfigure the sacred Deposit of Faith. Let us not forget that the Church is composed not only of the Church Militant on this earth (hic) at the present time (nunc), but also the Church Penitent in Purgatory and the Church Triumphant in Heaven. Her celestial structure is the guarantee of that indefectibility that her Divine Founder promised Her and that the Holy Spirit assures Her. And if the conciliar-synodal church that today presents itself as “militant” contradicts the Church of yesterday, breaking the continuity and unity in the Profession of the One Faith that makes the Church One and Apostolic even in the flow of time and not only in Her diffusion in space, then the conciliar-synodal church is no longer the same church. For this reason, the Lord does not fail to raise up a vox clamantis in deserto that breaks down the wall of silence and complicity of the conspirators: I am referring to the “doctors of the last times” mentioned by Augustin Lémann [9] in his essay L’Antécrist [The Antichrist]. They are the new Saint Athanasiuses, imprisoned, exiled, and persecuted, but finally repaid by Divine Justice with the proclamation of their sainthood. This is how the great Bishop of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church addressed the faithful during the massive Arian heresy [10]:
May God comfort you! […] What is saddening […] is the fact that others have violently occupied the churches, while during this period you find yourself outside. It is a fact that they have the seat, but you have the apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us see: which is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in this struggle – the one who maintains the seat or the one who observes the Faith? It is true, the buildings are good when the apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything within them is carried out in a holy manner… You are the happy ones, you who remain within the Church for your Faith, which you hold firm to the foundations as they have come down to you from the Apostolic Tradition, and if some execrable person jealously tries to shake it on various occasions, he is unsuccessful. They are the ones who have distanced themselves from it in the current crisis. No one will ever prevail against your Faith, beloved brothers, and we believe that God will one day give us back our churches. The more that violent people attempt to occupy places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim to represent the Church, but in reality they are the ones who are expelled from it and are going astray. Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the true Church of Jesus Christ.
The recurring accusation that both Conservatives and Synodists level against those who remain steadfast in the Faith and denounce their errors is that they want to create their own church, separating themselves through schism from the visible and hierarchical Catholic Church, which they have seized in a veritable coup and in which they claim to exercise legitimate authority for purposes opposed to those entrusted to it by Our Lord. But are not rather they the ones who, with their errors condemned by all the pre-conciliar Popes, have created a parallel church that contradicts the immutable Magisterium and subverts the Papacy? How can an authority rebellious to Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body, claim to exercise Christ’s authority to contradict His Word? How can those who have separated themselves from ecclesial communion with the true Roman Catholic Apostolic Church accuse those who remain faithful to Her of schism?
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
October 24, 2025
S.cti Raphaëlis Archangeli
NOTE
1 – The term auctoritas derives from auctor, in the sense of author and guarantor, which both refer to God.
2 – Saint Pius X has reminded us that the success of the wicked is possible above all thanks to the laziness of good people.
3 – The expression in fraudem legis refers to a legal act or behavior performed with the intention of evading a law, circumventing its purpose or application, while formally complying with its letter. In other words, it is an action that, while appearing to comply with the law, is performed to achieve a result that the law itself intends to prohibit or limit. The characteristics of this behavior are formal compliance, an evasive, deceptive intent, and an effect contrary to the legislator’s intention.
4 – Mens rea is a legal term referring to the psychological component of the crime, that is, the subjective intention or awareness of violating the law.
5 – Hoffman writes: “The alchemical principle of the Revelation of the Method has as its chief component, a clown-like, grinning mockery of the victim(s) as a show of power and macabre arrogance. When this is performed in a veiled manner, accompanied by certain occult signs and symbolic words and elicits no meaningful response of opposition or resistance from the target(s), it is one of the most efficacious techniques of psychological warfare and mind-rape.” Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, 2001.
6 – Bartolo Longo writes: “Before God, man has no true freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, or freedom of thought, as we understand them today—that is, the ability to choose a religion and a form of worship as he pleases. Man has only the freedom of the children of God, as St. Paul says, that is, to abandon the error and seductions of the world to run freely to Heaven. Therefore, to assert that man has the right before God to think and believe in religion as he pleases is an error. Cf. Bartolo Longo, San Domenico e l’Inquisizione al Tribunale della Ragione e della Storia, Valle di Pompei, Scuola tipografica editrice Bartolo Longo, 1888.
7 – Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which one person (or group) causes another to doubt their perception of reality, memory, or sanity, with the goal of controlling, weakening, or destabilizing the victim.
8 – Indeed, there can be no true obedience if those in authority within the Hierarchy demand obedience but at the same time disobey God, who is the guarantor and very source of Authority. Nor can there be legitimate authority if those who exercise it in God’s name do not in turn submit to His Supreme Authority.
9 – Augustin Lémann, L’Anticristo, Marietti, 1919, p. 53. “The second champion of Christian truth against the Antichrist will be a phalanx of doctors raised up by God in those times of trial. […] This phalanx of doctors will receive, for the defense and consolation of the good, a greater understanding of our holy Scriptures.” Cf. rassegnastampa-totustuus . it / cattolica/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/LANTICRISTO-A-Lemann.pdf. Canon Augustin Lémann, a French Jew, converted to Catholicism along with his brother. They both became friends with Pius IX and served as consultants to the First Vatican Council.
10 – Saint Athanasius, Epistolæ festales, Lettera XXIX, in: Coll. Selecta SS. Eccl. Patrum, edited by Caillaud and Guillon, vol. 32, pp. 411-412.
Source:
Hæc omnia tibi dabo