Viganò, Vatican critic, blames 'deep state' for
Ukraine war, citing COVID-19 measures
VATICAN CITY — As Pope Francis continued attempts to mediate the conflict in Ukraine, former Vatican envoy and outspoken papal critic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò released a letter Monday (March 7) blaming “deep state” forces in the United States, the European Union and NATO for triggering the current war and demonizing Russia.
“The
United States of America and the European States must not marginalize Russia
but build an alliance with it, not only to restart trade for the prosperity of
all, but in lieu of the reconstruction of a Christian Civilization, which will
be the only one able to save the world from the transhuman and medical-technical
globalist monster,” the archbishop wrote in his nearly 10,000 word letter.
The
archbishop, once the papal nuncio to the United States among other countries,
has a keen understanding of what happens in rooms of power and influence, but
since accusing Francis of covering up allegations of sex abuse against disgraced
ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, going so far as to ask for the pope's
resignation in 2018, Viganò has been welcomed into the ranks of a small but
outspoken Catholic conservative right. His rhetoric has increasingly leaned on
anti-migrant, anti-vaccine and pro-Trump takes.
The
archbishop said in his letter that Putin has been cornered by an aggressive
NATO, backed by the United States, which is seeking to escalate the conflict
for its own gains. "This is the trap for Russia just as much as Ukraine,
using both to allow a globalist elite to bring its criminal plot to
fruition," Viganò wrote.
So-called
democratic states, according to Viganò, have imposed "censure and
intolerance" over dissenting opinions. The pandemic has exacerbated this
dynamic, the archbishop said, adding that global media outlets
"shamelessly lied" with the cooperation of governments and the
Catholic hierarchy.
Viganò
said the "ostracism" of those who have opposed the administration of
COVID-19 vaccines was similar to the treatment reserved for those who refuse to
call Putin an "invader" or "tyrant."
The
Vatican has repeatedly dismissed objections to the vaccines based on their
development or testing with stem cell lines original drawn from aborted fetal
cells. Pope Francis has joined global pro-vaccine campaigns, calling getting
the shot "an act of love." The Pontifical Academy for Life, a Vatican
think tank charged with promoting life from conception to natural death, has
come forward numerous times encouraging Catholics to get the vaccine.
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Viganò
adopted Russian President Vladimir Putin's justifications for attacking
Ukraine, lamenting the lack of media coverage of supposed neo-Nazi groups in
Ukraine that have allegedly attacked Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the autonomous
eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy has ridiculed the idea that Nazism is behind the eight-year-old
conflict in his country's east, which Russia invaded in 2014.
The
letter was the second defense of Russia's invasion to be floated by a prominent
churchman in recent days. In a sermon on Sunday, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow,
the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and an ally of Putin, repeated a
long-held contention that the West wants to enforce the practice of holding gay
pride parades as a test of loyalty to its values, which include the acceptance
of homosexuality. The Ukraine war, he said Sunday, resulted from the eastern
regions' refusal to acquiesce.
"If
humanity accepts that sin is not a violation of God's law, if humanity accepts
that sin is a variation of human behavior, then human civilization will end
there," Kirill said on the pre-Lenten celebration known as Forgiveness
Sunday.
But
Viganò sees a deeper plot to institute a new world order. Naming the United
Nations, NATO and the International Monetary Fund as well as the European Union
and billionaire philanthropists like George Soros and Bill Gates, the
archbishop identified a global conspiracy, initiated by an American deep state,
to introduce a world government based on economic interests and progressivism.
Viganò
portrayed Zelenskyy as an E.U. puppet, an affable outsider introduced to foment
Ukrainians' feelings against Russia.
"The
image of Zelenskyy is an artificial product, a mediatic fiction, an operation
to manipulate consensus that was nonetheless able to create a political
character in the Ukrainian collective imagination and who in reality, not in
fiction, was able to seize power," the former Vatican envoy wrote of the
Ukrainian president, who is Jewish.
Calling
Ukrainians "hostages" of the globalist totalitarian regime, he
advised them against joining the E.U. Instead, Viganò wrote, European nations
must seek their independence by finding once more their "sovereignty,
their identity, their faith. Their soul."
Nonetheless,
the archbishop urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to "turn the
tables" on the "globalist ploy" by offering Ukraine a peaceful
way out. "The more Putin believes (himself) to be right, the more he will
prove the greatness of his nation and the love for his people by not giving
into provocations," he added.
A version of this story appeared in
the March 18-31, 2022 print issue under the headline:
Viganò blames 'deep state' for Ukraine war .
