Archbishop Viganò: Holy Church Is Eclipsed By A Sect Of Heretics, Fornicators, And Corrupt Individuals

'Those who want to remain faithful to Our Lord are erased and excommunicated by mercenaries who usurp His name.'

Credit: Exsurge Domine website

Editor’s note: This sermon by His Excellency was delivered on Christmas Day. Visit the Exsurge Domine website here.

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Gloria in excelsis Deo,
et in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis. - Lk 2:14

If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you (Jn 15:20). And from the very moment of His Birth secundum carnem, Our Lord has been persecuted: even in swaddling clothes, Herod’s soldiers sought Him out in order to kill the Child whom Herod feared might overshadow his earthly power. Martyrs of a false monarch appointed by the emperor, the Holy Innocents, whose memory we will celebrate in a few days, were the first – children themselves – to be martyred by a power as tyrannical as it was illegitimate, which for this very reason had to impose itself with violence, even on the youngest and most defenseless. Crudelis Herodes, Deum venire quid times? says the hymn for the Epiphany: “Cruel Herod, why do you fear the coming God?” New Herods, throughout history and especially in this grim twilight that marks the collapse of Christian civilization, have inflicted and continue to inflict suffering on the little ones, in order to crucify again and again, in His members, the Divine Head of the Mystical Body. Their lineage perpetuates through the centuries the blind and vengeful aversion of those who know they are usurpers and fear the arrival of the King, because it would represent the end of their frauds. They fear His return even more, because in the Second Coming – this time in the dazzling glory of the Rex tremendae maiestatis – it will not be Our Lord who flees from His enemies, but He Himself will drag them before Him and judge them before the world, and based on the universal evidence of their crimes they will be plunged into the abyss. The violence of the wicked hides the terror of the awareness that their days are literally numbered.

Glory to God in the highest heavens, and peace on earth to men of good will, the Angels sing over the cave of Bethlehem. Peace: the more we hear this word repeated by the world, and unfortunately even by those at the highest levels of the Church, the more it loses its meaning and reveals itself for what it is: the illusion, or rather the presumption, of being able to have peace in the world after having deliberately driven out Our Lord, Princeps Pacis (Is 9:5); the mad delirium of glorifying man for his non-existent and blasphemous infinite dignity, in the rebellious denial of the sovereign rights of Christ the King and High Priest, and in the systematic subversion of God’s Commandments. Let us not forget, dear faithful: the Antichrist is simia Christi – the ape of Christ – just as Satan is simia Dei – the ape of God. It is in the reversal wrought by the revolution that his infernal kingdom is realized: instead of the whole world composed in peace – toto orbe in pace composito – that marks the Birth of the Divine Savior, it is in the whole world divided in war – toto orbe in bello diviso – that we recognize the mark of the Enemy of mankind, a murderer from the beginning, a liar and the father of lies (Jn 8:44). On one side the Light, on the other the darkness. On one side the Truth, on the other the lie. On one side the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ, on the other the war of the Antichrist in the tyranny of the Antichrist. Darkness fears the Light, just as fraud fears the Truth, and as χάος fears κόσμος.

Glory to God, peace to men; where the glory of God is the premise and condition for men of good will – that is, those who observe His Commandments and put them into practice with true Charity enlightened by Faith – to have true peace. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” (Jn 14:27). Not with lies, not with fraud, not with injustice and iniquity; not in the disorder of sin and the tolerance of evil. Not where the innocent are killed in the mother’s womb and the elderly in their hospital beds. Not where the natural family is persecuted and blamed, while sodomitic unions are qualified as “marriages” and surrogate motherhood is legalized in the most abject exploitation of women and mothers. Not where nature itself is tampered with, to erase from man that Image and Likeness of his Creator which the Serpent detests. Not where man is emasculated and woman masculinized. Not where those who work must be treated as slaves to enrich their masters. Not where the guilty are acquitted and the innocent imprisoned. Not where fiction replaces reality, where poverty is an opportunity for profit, where purity and chastity are ridiculed and the worst vices are promoted and encouraged even among the youngest. Not where the clamor of the scelesta turba cancels Christian holidays, not where the sound of bells gives way to the cry of the muezzin, while the rulers – who proclaim themselves secular when they prohibit Nativity scenes and Crucifixes – proudly pay homage to the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, whose lights have taken the place of the Nativity of Our Lord. Not where the lust for money and power has taken the place of honor and honesty. Not where subversive powers command politicians without dignity and decency, and where information is subservient to and complicit in lies. Not where healthy people are made sick to feed the pharmaceutical Moloch and millions of human beings are sent to the slaughter to enrich arms manufacturers. Not where the sunlight is obscured and the air, water, and fields are poisoned, livestock are massacred, and crops are destroyed for the benefit of multinational corporations. Not where silently praying in front of an abortion clinic leads to arrest, and where telling the truth on social media is considered hate speech. Not where every authority, at every level, governs illegitimately, legislating against God and against man. Not where people delude themselves into thinking they can escape God’s gaze, while imposing total control over the masses. Not where the Holy Church – beata pacis visio – is eclipsed by a sect of heretics, fornicators, and corrupt individuals. Not where those who want to remain faithful to Our Lord are erased and excommunicated by mercenaries who usurp His name while demanding obedience.

The servants of the Antichrist want us to believe that there is no way out, that this war is already lost, and that each of us must resign ourselves to living in this infernal dystopia, without the possibility of driving out the usurpers, traitors, and accomplices of this global coup. The terror of God’s enemies is, in fact, the fear of losing a power obtained through fraud and exercised illegitimately; and that our determination to remain faithful to Christ will expose their criminal deception and force them to reveal themselves for what they truly are.

Let us turn our gaze to the Holy Child. In these thick shadows that surround us, let us look to Him, the true Light that enlightens every man (Jn 1:9). Let us look to the King of kings, who, in obedience to the Father, chose to become incarnate and die for us. Puer natus est nobis, we sang at the introit: a Child is born for us. For us: propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem, for us men and for our salvation. Look at Him whom we adore today in the hiddenness of His divinity, and whom we will see return cum gloria to judge the living and the dead.

The Incarnation of the Eternal Word of the Father does not give us a peace according to the world, nor a merely human hope. The Birth of Our Lord gives us true peace of heart: peace with God that comes from living in His Holy Grace, and the unwavering hope that He assists us with the Holy Spirit so that we may attain that eternal blessedness that will crown our earthly struggle.

Along with the Divine Comforter, the Lord gives us His own Mother, making us Her children and placing us under the protection of the One who crushed the head of the ancient Serpent. The Son of God appeared precisely to destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn 3:8): He is the royal offspring of the Woman crowned with stars, whom our Fathers awaited. He is the promised Messiah whom we have recognized in Jesus Christ, and to the holiest, purest, and humblest of creatures He has been pleased to entrust the task of casting Satan into the abyss, after the Archangel Saint Michael will have overthrown and killed the Antichrist. While awaiting this defeat of Evil and the definitive triumph of Good, let us not cease to invoke Her as our Queen, the Regina Crucis, our Mother, our Hope. To Her Providence has entrusted the treasures of all graces: may She shorten these days of tribulation and show us, after this exile, the Child King whose birth we celebrate today. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

25 December MMXXV
In Nativitate D.N.J.C.