Pope Benedict XVI's Secretary: Pope Benedict Never Confirmed Vigano Report

The Deacon's Bench, a blog written by fellow Brooklynite Deacon Greg Kendra, gave us some very interesting articles today regarding the Vigano report.

The first is from a German newspaper in which Pope Benedict's secretary says that the claim that Pope Benedict confirmed the statements in the Vigano report are "fake news".  You can read the original article HERE.

My Google translation of the German article is as follows:

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, private secretary of Benedict XVI, has rejected the claim that the emeritus Pope had confirmed the allegations of former Vatican diplomat Carlo Viganò. "Pope Benedict has not commented on the 'memorandum' of Archbishop Viganò and will not do so," Gänswein told the newspaper. The claim that the emeritus Pope had confirmed the statements lacked any foundation. "Fake news!" Says Gänswein.

EWTN board member claimed that Benedict had confirmed allegations

The archbishop refers to a New York Times report citing a board member of the American news channel "EWTN," Timothy Bush. According to him, the emeritus Pope confirmed the allegations made in Viganò's letter.

Archbishop Viganò claims that both Pope Francis and other high-ranking Vatican officials have known since 2013 about allegations of abuse against former US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Even a former nunciature consultant confirmed the allegations.

That New York Times article, dated August 27, referred to by the Pope's secretary can be found HERE, and it says:

Two weeks ago, Archbishop Viganò privately shared his plan to speak out with an influential American friend: Timothy Busch, a wealthy, conservative Catholic lawyer on the board of governors of the media network in which Archbishop Viganò ultimately revealed his letter.

“Archbishop Viganò has done us a great service,” Mr. Busch said in a phone interview Sunday night. “He decided to come forward because if he didn’t, he realized he would be perpetuating the cover-up.”

Mr. Busch said he believed Archbishop Viganò’s claims to be “credible,” and that he did not know in advance that the archbishop would choose to publish his attack in the National Catholic Register, which is owned by the Eternal Word Television Network, where Mr. Busch is on the board of governors.

Mr. Busch said leaders of the publication had personally assured him that the former pope, Benedict XVI, had confirmed Archbishop Viganò’s account. Details and accuracy of that confirmation have not been externally verified.

Vigano's report stated that the alleged sanctions imposed by Benedict against McCarrick were secret, never meant to be publicly known.  I know that makes no sense, but that is what the Vigano memo says.  If that is the case, why did Vigano after all this time feel that if he did not come forward, he would "perpetuating the cover-up"?  Is there an inference here that Vigano was guilted into writing this report so that he would not be part of the "cover up"?  You be the judge.

And why am I not surprised that it was EWTN who was behind this.  Anyway, now it seems that the secretary of the former pope is saying Pope Benedict has never talked to anyone about the Vigano memo.  Will any of those calling for the head of Pope Francis own up to this?  Or will they conveniently ignore this story and continue to condemn?  Michael Voris?  John Zuhlsdorf?  Anyone?

I will discuss this further down in this post.

Deacon Kandra was not done.  Here is what he calls another bombshell from the AP, found HERE.  It is the story of the anti-Pope Francis journalist, Marco Tosatti, who says he was the one contacted by Vigano.  Tosatti says that he sat side by side with Vigano and wrote the letter with him.

It almost seems a story of forcing Vigano into doing something he did not want to do (if you don't do this, you will be perpetuating the cover up). As you can see in this article, Tosatti was really pushing Vigano.  This article also shows the conspiracy behind the Vigano memo and the fact that it was timed to be released when it would do the most harm to Pope Francis:

An Italian journalist who says he helped a former Vatican diplomat pen his bombshell allegation of sex abuse cover-up against Pope Francis says he persuaded the archbishop to go public after the U.S. church was thrown into turmoil by revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

Marco Tosatti said he helped Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano write, rewrite and edit his 11-page testimony, saying the two sat side-by-side at a wooden table in Tosatti’s living room for three hours on Aug. 22.

Tosatti, a leading Italian critic of Francis, told The Associated Press that Vigano had called him a few weeks ago out of the blue asking to meet, and then proceeded to tell him the information that became the basis of the testimony.

Vigano’s document alleges that Francis knew of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual misconduct starting in 2013, but rehabilitated him from sanctions that Pope Benedict XVI had imposed. The claims have shaken Francis’ five-year papacy.

Vigano called for Francis to resign over what he said was complicity in covering up McCarrick’s crimes. There is ample evidence, however, that the Vatican under Benedict and St. John Paul II also covered up that information, and that any sanctions Benedict imposed were never enforced.

Vigano has kept largely quiet since the bombshell testimony Sunday, and his whereabouts are unknown. As a result, Tosatti’s reconstruction provides the only insight into how the document came about.

Tosatti, a longtime correspondent for Italian daily La Stampa but who now writes largely for more conservative blogs and newspapers, said after their initial meeting a few weeks ago, Vigano said he wasn’t prepared to go public. They had been acquaintances, not friends, and Vigano said he needed to settle some personal matters before proceeding.

But Tosatti said he called him after the Pennsylvania grand jury report published Aug. 15 alleged some 300 priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses abused more than 1,000 children over the past 70 years, and that a sequence of bishops had covered it up.

Tosatti said he told Vigano: “I think that if you want to say something, now is the moment, because everything is going upside-down in the United States. He said ‘OK.’”

The two then met at Tosatti’s Rome apartment. Initially, Tosatti thought Vigano would give him an interview, but then Vigano decided to put his thoughts on paper.

“He had prepared some kind of a draft of a document and he sat here by my side,” Tosatti told the AP from behind his desk, pointing to the wooden chair to his right. “I told him that we had to work on it really because it was not in a journalistic style.”

Tosatti said he persuaded Vigano to cut claims that couldn’t be substantiated or documented “because it had to be absolutely waterproof.” Tosatti said Vigano was “deadly serious” the whole time, and that both emerged physically and emotionally exhausted.

Tosatti said Vigano was well aware of the implications of the document and what it took for a Holy See diplomat to reveal secrets he had kept for years.

“They are brought up to die silent,” Tosatti said of Holy See diplomats. “So what he was doing, what he was going to do, was something absolutely against his nature.”

But he said Vigano felt compelled to publish out of a sense of duty to the Catholic Church and to clear his conscience.

“He enjoys a good health but 77 is an age where you start preparing yourself ... he couldn’t have a clear conscience unless he spoke,” Tosatti said.

Document in hand, Tosatti then set out to find publications willing to publish it in its entirety: the small Italian daily La Verita, the English-language National Catholic Register and LifeSiteNews and the Spanish online site InfoVaticana.

All are conservative or ultraconservative media that have been highly critical of Francis’ mercy-over-morals papacy.

The English and Spanish publications translated the Italian document and all agreed on a Sunday morning embargo, coinciding with the second and final day of Francis’ trip to Ireland, where the Catholic church’s sex abuse and cover-up scandal dominated his trip.

Tosatti said Vigano didn’t tell him where he was going after the article came out, knowing that the world’s media would be clamoring to speak with him.

As Tosatti accompanied Vigano to his door, he bent down to kiss Vigano’s ring — a sign of respect for Catholic bishops.

“He tried to say ‘No.’ I told him ’It’s not for you, it’s for the role that you (play) that I do it,’” Tosatti said. “He didn’t say anything. He went away, but he was crying.”

Tosatti left Vigano a broken man in tears, but he didn't care.  He had what he wanted.

Deacon Kandra gave us one more article [HERE], this one saying Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register is defending his original reporting on the Vigano report against the statement made by Archbishop Gänswein that Pope Benedict never confirmed the report.

Pentin tells us this:

The Register reported Aug. 25 that Benedict XVI had issued sanctions against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick but we never stated that the Pope Emeritus confirmed — as alleged in The New York Times — all of Archbishop Viganò’s recent testimony on corruption in the Church.

Much is being made on social media today about Archbishop Georg Gänswein’s comments in which he said it is “fake news” to suggest that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI confirmed Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s testimony on abuse cover up in the Vatican.

What Archbishop Gänswein said is entirely accurate: Any assertion that the Pope Emeritus had seen the entire testimony, and confirmed it, is untrue.

The Register also never reported this.

What we did report, given by an inside source close to Benedict in July, was that Benedict had issued sanctions against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick but was unable to remember their precise nature.

That has not been denied.

In his comments published today in Die Tagespost, Archbishop Gänswein said he was referring to a report published yesterday in The New York Times.

In that article, The New York Times interviewed and quoted Tim Busch, a board member of EWTN. And in comments attributed to him, but without quoting him directly, The Times reported that he told the newspaper that “leaders of the publication [the Register] had personally assured him that the former pope, Benedict XVI, had confirmed Archbishop Viganò’s account.”

Archbishop Gänswein, who is also prefect of the Pontifical Household, denied as “fake news” this assertion as reported by The New York Times, alleging that Benedict had “confirmed Viganò’s account.”

He also said Benedict had “no opinion” on the memorandum of Archbishop Viganò. It is not clear what memorandum he is referring to, as a number of memoranda are mentioned in Archbishop Viganò's testimony, and Archbishop Viganò never refers to Benedict’s penal measures on McCarrick as a “memorandum.” Archbishop Gänswein did not go into any more details, but he did not refute that Benedict issued sanctions.

The Register fully stands by its reporting, drawn on sources close to the Pope Emeritus, that sanctions were issued by Benedict against McCarrick.

The problem with this is that Archbishop Gänswein was not referring to Pentin's article. It doesn't matter what Pentin reported anymore than it matters what I or anyone else said or reported.  Even Pentin himself admits, "In his comments published today in Die Tagespost, Archbishop Gänswein said he was referring to a report published yesterday in The New York Times."  Pentin's defense is nothing but a diversion and has no relevance to the statement made by Archbishop Gänswein.

The only concern here is the New York Times article quoted about which included an interview with Timothy Busch, "a wealthy, conservative Catholic lawyer on the board of governors of the media network [EWTN] in which Archbishop Viganò ultimately revealed his letter."  In fact, the Times article tells us that Busch is the one who was originally contacted by Vigano.

This is the specific statement from the Times article to which Archbishop Gänswein is specifically referring:

Mr. Busch said leaders of the publication had personally assured him that the former pope, Benedict XVI, had confirmed Archbishop Viganò’s account.

Neither Busch, the New York Times nor Archbishop Gänswein said anything about Pentin's original article.  We don't need to hear from Edward Pentin because he is irrelevant in this conversation.

We need to hear from Timothy Busch, and we need to know which "leaders of the publication personally assured him that the former pope, Benedict XVI, had confirmed Archbishop Viganò’s account" and from whom did these "leaders of the publication" get this confirmation?

We know it wasn't from Pope Benedict because as his secretary made very clear, Pope Benedict isn't talking to anyone.  And we know it wasn't the Pope's secretary.  So who was it?  Edward Pentin can make all the noise he wants, but that doesn't answer the question regarding the Times article.

The entire Vigano report is slowing falling apart.  But I can assure you that the enemies of Pope Francis will pay no attention to this.  They will continue to beat the war drums against the Holy Father, doing everything they can to destroy him.  These enemies of the Pope will continue to sow their seeds of hate and destruction and attempt to tear the Church apart.

Pray. Pray. Pray.