Archbishop ✠Carlo Maria Viganò is right that a Pope can misuse his authority, injure Tradition and become an adversary of the proper purpose of the Papacy. But his theory that the head has separated from the body threatens to replace papal maximalism with private judgement—and cannot adequately explain how the Church’s visible unity survives.
In the first part of a new interview with LifeSiteNews, Archbishop ✠Carlo Maria Viganò argues that the greatest present enemy of the Papacy is the Pope himself. The paradox, he says, disappears once the divine institution is distinguished from the fallible man who occupies the Apostolic See. The Papacy belongs to Christ and remains indefectible; an individual Pope may fail to correspond to the grace of his office, employ authority against the end for which it was given and damage the doctrine, worship and government he is bound to preserve.¹
That distinction is entirely Catholic. The Pope is not the proprietor of revelation but its chief custodian. He cannot reverse the natural law, alter the substance of the Sacraments, contradict the Deposit of Faith or turn error into truth by an exercise of will. His authority is supreme and universal, but it is neither arbitrary nor absolute in the modern political sense. It was given ad ædificationem, for the building up of the Church, and remains bound to the constitution which Christ gave her.
Viganò is therefore right to say that obedience is a virtue, not an idol. Saint Paul resisted Saint Peter “to the face” when Peter’s conduct endangered the truth of the Gospel. Saint Thomas Aquinas consequently taught that a prelate may be corrected publicly when the Faith is imperilled, provided such correction proceeds from charity and respects the divinely constituted order of the Church.² Catholic obedience has never required the surrender of revelation, reason or conscience to an ecclesiastical superior. A command contrary to divine law does not acquire sanctifying power merely because it comes dressed in authority.
The interview is particularly acute in its description of the manner by which doctrine may be neutralised without being formally denied. Catholic words remain in official documents while appointments, silences, permissions and pastoral exceptions establish a contrary rule of life. Sin becomes “fragility”, conversion becomes “accompaniment”, divine law is reduced to an “ideal”, and doctrinal certainty is replaced by a “process” whose intended conclusion is never candidly admitted. The formula remains on paper while ceasing to govern the Church’s public conduct.
This is the significance of Viganò’s appeal to the programme associated with Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. Questions concerning priestly celibacy, women in ministry, sexual morality and marriage are not presented as doctrines to be rejected but as “knots” to be untied. Each is then handed to a commission, listening process or synodal consultation until what was once excluded becomes discussable, what becomes discussable becomes pastorally permissible, and what becomes permissible is eventually treated as irreversible. The revolution proceeds without ever announcing itself as a revolution.
Pope Leo XIV has not originated this method. The more serious question is whether his pontificate will restrain it or give it a calmer and more durable institutional form. Viganò answers with certainty that Leo is consolidating the work of Francis: where Francis disrupted the Papacy openly, Leo will make the disruption orderly, respectable and permanent. That judgement has not yet been proved. Leo’s pontificate must be judged by his acts, teaching and appointments rather than by an apocalyptic role assigned to him in advance. Yet Viganò identifies a genuine danger. A revolution does not cease to be revolutionary merely because its second generation speaks softly, observes protocol and prefers administration to spectacle.
The same caution applies to synodality. Properly understood, episcopal counsel and prudent consultation do not threaten the constitution of the Church. Synodality becomes destructive when consultation is used to manufacture doctrinal authority for conclusions which revelation does not permit. The process then becomes a theatrical demand from below for changes already desired above. No Pope may evade responsibility for such changes by claiming that he is merely listening to the People of God. The charism of government was not given so that authority might conceal its purposes behind a permanent consultation.
Viganò is also correct about the Church’s inability to ordain women to the priesthood. Ordinatio sacerdotalis did not create a new prohibition but confirmed a doctrine already taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. The 1995 response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expressly stated that the teaching belongs to the Deposit of Faith and must be held definitively.³ A pastoral process cannot acquire an authority which the Church herself does not possess.
The question of women exercising Curial governance nevertheless requires greater precision than the interview allows. The relationship between Holy Orders and ecclesiastical jurisdiction is profound, and attempts to detach government entirely from the sacramental constitution of the Church deserve serious criticism. Canon law, however, distinguishes between those qualified by Sacred Orders to possess the power of governance and lay faithful who may cooperate in its exercise.⁴ Whether particular appointments preserve or subvert that distinction must be examined according to the authority actually conferred. It cannot be settled simply by declaring every exercise of administrative power by a woman to be a usurpation of Holy Orders.
Nor should an unresolved historical discussion concerning ancient deaconesses be merged with the definitive teaching against priestly ordination for women. The unity of the Sacrament of Holy Orders makes proposals for a sacramental female diaconate doctrinally momentous. Nevertheless, a commission’s inability to reach a definitive historical conclusion about deaconesses does not render Ordinatio sacerdotalis non-definitive. Precision is indispensable when the charge against the modern Church is precisely that calculated ambiguity is being used to erode doctrine.
The deepest difficulty arises with Viganò’s proposed category of scisma capitale—a “schism of the head”. In an ordinary schism, he argues, members separate themselves from the head; in the present crisis, the head has separated himself from the Mystical Body and from the Tradition which precedes him. As a description of a Pope acting against the proper purpose of his office, the expression has rhetorical force. As an ecclesiological principle, it threatens the very Papacy Viganò intends to defend.
The Roman Pontiff is not merely a functionary who may be measured against an invisible constitution and declared detached from office whenever a bishop, priest or layman believes the judgement has gone against him. Christ established in Saint Peter and his successors a perpetual and visible principle of ecclesial unity. Vatican I taught that Peter lives, presides and judges in his successors and that the faithful are bound to preserve unity of communion and profession of Faith with the Roman Pontiff.⁵ The Catechism of the Council of Trent had already explained why a visible Church requires a visible head: without one, unity ceases to be an ascertainable ecclesial reality and becomes an abstraction claimed by competing parties.⁶
None of this makes the Pope impeccable, inspired in every utterance or immune from correction. It does mean that one cannot defend the Petrine office by making its reality depend upon the private judgement of whoever believes himself more faithful than its occupant. If the Pope remains Pope, he remains the visible head even when he governs disastrously. If he has ceased to be Pope, that is not a conclusion which every Catholic may impose upon the Church by personal deduction. Otherwise, Tradition becomes a collection of rival tribunals, each claiming to possess the authority it denies to Rome.
Viganò maintains that he never intended to separate himself from Apostolic Communion and asks Pope Leo to identify where he has contradicted the Deposit of Faith. The question is not without force. An accusation of schism must never become an administrative device for avoiding substantive doctrinal criticism. Yet the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith did not declare his excommunication merely because he criticised Pope Francis or opposed errors associated with Vatican II. Its judgement cited his refusal to recognise and submit to the Roman Pontiff, his rejection of communion with those subject to him, and his denial of the Council’s legitimacy and magisterial authority.⁷ He cannot answer that judgement simply by declaring himself the truly faithful party and asking which side is actually in schism. That is precisely the question which cannot be settled by self-certification.
The appeal to necessity does not resolve the problem. Necessity is a genuine principle of Catholic moral and canonical reasoning. It can excuse an otherwise unlawful act when observance of positive law would cause grave and disproportionate harm to souls. But necessity is not a portable grant of supreme jurisdiction, nor does invoking it make the claimant the final judge of his own cause.
The distinction is particularly important after the 2026 episcopal consecrations undertaken by the Society of Saint Pius X. The Society invoked necessity and continued to profess recognition of Pope Leo XIV even while defying his prohibition. Rome declared the consecrations illicit, imposed canonical penalties and went further by characterising adherence to the Society as schismatic.⁸ Those conclusions require careful canonical scrutiny, particularly where the decree appears to move from the specific offence of consecration without pontifical mandate to a general judgement upon clergy and faithful. But the SSPX’s stated position is not Viganò’s. It continues to name Leo as Pope, to pray for him in the Canon and to appeal to Roman authority, even while resisting particular commands which it judges destructive of Tradition.
The Old Roman position is distinct again. Old Romans recognise the Roman Pontiff, accept the dogmatic definitions of Pastor aeternus, pray for the Pope in the sacred liturgy and make no claim to constitute a separate Catholic Church. They understand themselves as Roman Catholics living and ministering in irregular circumstances, preserving what was received while seeking neither to abolish the Papacy nor to replace its judgement with their own. Such circumstances cannot simply be declared regular by those living within them; neither do they require Catholics to pretend that every Roman policy, disciplinary measure or liturgical innovation is thereby protected from criticism or resistance.
Viganò’s treatment of the katechon, the restraining power described in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, exposes the same danger of moving too rapidly from insight to certainty. Several Fathers, including Saint John Chrysostom, associated the restraint with the Roman Empire, and later Catholic thought connected the preservation of order with Christian authority.⁹ It is therefore possible to speak analogically of the Papacy as a restraint against the mysterium iniquitatis. Saint Paul does not, however, identify Vatican II, synodality or Pope Leo as the mechanism by which the restraint is to be removed. An interpretation of contemporary events may be plausible without possessing the certainty of revelation.
The tragedy of Archbishop Viganò is that he sees clearly how authority may be emptied of its Catholic purpose, yet answers that crisis with a theory which risks emptying authority of its visible content. He rejects the maximalist caricature in which every papal preference becomes the voice of God, but then approaches the opposite precipice, where communion with the Pope remains obligatory only while the Pope satisfies the believer’s test of Catholicity.
Catholics are not compelled to choose between servility and separation. They may recognise the Pope, profess the dogmas of Vatican I, pray for him and remain within the visible communion of the Church while resisting commands or innovations destructive of received Faith, worship and discipline. Such resistance will sometimes be costly. To remain Catholic, it must also be sober in judgement, exact in doctrine, proportionate in action and unwilling to claim an authority it has not received.
A Pope can betray the purpose of his office without becoming the owner of the Church, and a resister can defend Tradition without becoming the judge of the Papacy. That narrow ground is uncomfortable because it offers neither the tranquillity of blind obedience nor the intoxicating certainty of declaring Rome apostate. Yet it is precisely there that Catholic fidelity must stand. The answer to a Pope who behaves as though he were master of Tradition cannot be a theory in which every Catholic becomes master of the Pope.
¹ Aldo Maria Valli, “L’intervista di LifeSiteNews a monsignor Viganò / 1: Il Concilio, il Katechon, lo Scisma del Capo,” 21 September 2026
² St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, II–II, q. 33, “Fraternal Correction”
³ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum ad dubium concerning Ordinatio sacerdotalis, 28 October 1995
⁴ Code of Canon Law, canons 129–144: “The Power of Governance”
⁵ First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor aeternus, 18 July 1870
⁶ The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Article IX: “The Holy Catholic Church”
⁷ Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Press Release concerning Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò,” 5 July 2024
⁸ Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Decree concerning the Society of Saint Pius X,” 2 July 2026
⁹ St John Chrysostom, Homily IV on the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians
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