THE VATICAN IS RUNNING SCARED

It'll be all over the papers, I told a friend yesterday morning. 

She hadn't heard anything about the Vigano revelations, which for me were quite literally breathtaking. It was like a Force Eight earthquake for the Church and grist to the media mill - or so I thought.

How naïve. Have you noticed how subdued the reportage is? (Or have you noticed it at all?) 

That's because Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano is 'homophobic'. The media, who by and large are left-wing and pro-homosexual - and pro-Pope Francis - are trying to write Vigano's testimony off as a 'hard-line anti-gay' diatribe. It will indeed be interesting to see how the story's handled by the Catholic press here - a press described to me today as 'anodyne' and 'a projection of the bishops' non-negotiable agenda'. 

NZ Catholic for example is owned by the Bishop of Auckland, Patrick Dunn and like the NZ Bishops' Conference supports Pope Francis. That's fine: as 'good Catholics' we all support the Pope, I hope. 

But in today's unprecedented crisis in the Church, in the face of the Pope's lack-lustre appearance in Ireland - described by the Irish Times as "an exercise in deflection" - to suppress all but the most anodyne criticism of him and his bishops, is to contribute to that deflection and compound it.

Everything I've read today - not in newspapers, and not seen on the telly - tells me Vigano is for real and the Vatican is running scared. Actually what intrigued me, as opposed to shocking me, about Vigano's deposition was the statement that two Apostolic Nuncios in the US, Gabriel Montalvo and Pietro Sambri, were 'both prematurely deceased' and a reference to 'the unexpected death of Nuncio Sambi'. 

Why use those words, 'prematurely' and 'unexpected'? I have a feeling we'll find out. 

It was Nuncio Sambi who communicated to the disgraced McCarrick the news of Pope Benedict's sanctions against him. This has been corroborated at length today in an interview in France with Monsignor Jean-Francois Lantheaume, who was quoted by Vigano as overhearing the ensuing row between Sambi and McCarrick, in which 'the Nuncio's voice could be heard all the way out in the corridor'.

But what resonates with me personally is the lack of response from the Vatican to Vigano's memos about what was going on. For instance, he wrote to Cardinal Parolin, then Secretary of State, who Vigano says was complicit in covering for McCarrick - who after Pope Francis was elected boasted openly of his travels and missions to various continents. As Nuncio, Vigano asked Parolin if Pope Benedict's sanctions against McCarrick were still valid. 

'Ca va sans dire', says Vigano, he received no reply.

I know the feeling. That feeling of being ignored. 

Like when you write to your priest about his Protestant homilies. Or to your bishop asking why Church doctrine as taught in your diocese has been altered. Or to the same bishop asking for the shepherd's assistance which the Magisterium says is available to every Catholic in certain cases of mental illness, on behalf of someone in the diocese who's in danger of death from a family member.

Ca va sans dire, I've had no reply.