Trump Retweets Homophobic Bishop's Comments
Donald Trump has found an ally with one of Pope Francis's most severe critics.
Earlier today the President retweeted a tweet from Carlo Maria Vigan�, a Catholic archbishop, "who suggests the coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd protests are part of a 'deep state' plot to hurt the president's re-election," the Daily Mail reports.
'In society, Mr. President, these two opposing realities co-exist as eternal enemies, just as God and Satan are eternal enemies. And it appears that the children of darkness — whom we may easily identify with the deep state, which you wisely oppose and which is fiercely waging war against you in these days — have decided to show their cards, so to speak, by now revealing their plans,' Vigan� wrote.
In retweeting, the President shows his support for Vigan�, the long-winded conservative cleric who in 2018 rocked the Church with a letter claiming there are "homosexual networks inside the church that act "with the power of octopus tentacles" to 'strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations,'" the New York Times wrote in 2018.
In 2015 Vigan� ran afoul of Francis when he invited a "staunch critic of gay rights to greet the pope in Washington during a visit to the United States directly challenged Francis' inclusive message and prompted a controversy that nearly overshadowed the trip," reported the Times.
That critic was Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who became a conservative fan fave when she refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
"While Archbishop Vigan�, who was once criticized by church traditionalists as overly pragmatic, has aligned himself with a small but influential group of church traditionalists who have spent years seeking to stop Francis, many of his critics think his personal grudges are central to his motivations," the Times continued.
Vigan� has long been at odds with the Vatican hierarchy due to his archly conservative views. In 2018 he addressed charges of sexual abuse by the American Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, he claiming that Francis knew of it and covered it up.
Appointed to a money management position within the Vatican in 2009, he was accused of showing favoritism to a nephew and was said to have had designs, the Times writes, "had designs on the Vatican's security services."
His hopes of being made Cardinal were thwarted in 2011 when he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, which he retired from in January, 2016. During his tenure he was accused of covering up an investigation into sexual misconduct on the part of Archbishop John Nienstedt, then the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
"According to documents disclosed as part of a criminal investigation into the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese, he ordered bishops in April 2014 to quash an investigation into accusations that Archbishop John Nienstedt engaged in sexual misconduct with adult men and adult seminarians," reported the Times.
It was during his tenure as the Nuncio that he invited Kim Davis to meet the Pope.
An angry Francis, the Times continued, "was called back to Rome to explain himself. In a sign of his desire to move back permanently, he refused to give up his Vatican apartment. Reports in the Italian media this week asserted that after removing Archbishop Vigan� from his position, Pope Francis also kicked him out of his Vatican apartment."
His 2018 letter rocked the Church. In it he claimed that Francis knew McCarrick was a serial predator in 2013, but covered it up.
In the letter he Vigan�, "blames gays for the child abuse crisis that has destroyed the church's standing in many countries, dedicated entire sections of the letter to outing cardinals who he claims belong to what he characterizes as a pernicious 'homosexual current' within the Vatican," wrote the Times in 2018.
"These homosexual networks," he wrote, "which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc., act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire church."