Vatican strikes back at Pope Francis’ accuser Archbishop Vigano, pointing to 2015 rift as possible motive
Two ex-officials say that Archbishop Carlo Vigano – who has called on the pope to quit for allegedly shielding a sex abuser – admitted being chastised by Francis over a controversial meeting with a US advocate against gay marriage
The Vatican is starting to push back against Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, author of the bombshell accusation against Pope Francis that he helped cover up sex abuse, with a statement Sunday from its former spokesman about a controversial 2015 meeting Vigano organised.
The Reverend Federico Lombardi and his English-language assistant, the Reverend Thomas Rosica, issued a joint statement disputing Vigano’s claims about the encounter he organised with American anti-gay marriage campaigner, Kim Davis, during Francis’ September 2015 visit to the United States.
News of the Davis audience made headlines at the time and was viewed by conservatives as a papal stamp of approval for Davis, the Kentucky clerk at the Centre of the US gay marriage debate. But the Vatican furiously sought to play it down, with Lombardi saying the meeting by no means indicated papal support for Davis and insisting that the only private audience Francis held in Washington was with a former student: a gay man and his partner.
The September 24, 2015, Davis meeting and ensuing controversy has been cited as evidence of the frosty relations between Vigano and Francis that predated Vigano’s remarkable denunciation of how Vatican officials starting in 2000 knew of sexual misconduct allegations against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick but covered them up.
Vigano, whose August 26 claims that Francis knew about McCarrick starting in 2013 have thrown the papacy into turmoil, issued a second statement August 30 saying Francis knew well who Davis was, and that the Vatican hierarchy approved the meeting in advance.
