In saying what is headlined, I do not mean that Archbishop Viganò is foreseeing the future, but that he is teaching the truths of revealed religion with stunning clarity and holy urgency. His Grace is objecting to the continuation of the program begun in the statement jointly signed in Abu Dhabi by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, a program that now proposes a common worship space in Abu Dhabi for Catholics, Jews, and Muslims called “House of the Abrahamic Family.”
It should be recalled that the statement jointly signed by the Grand Imam and the Holy Father, with the unwieldy title “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” problematically asserts that “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.” While God’s permissive will allows for the evil of false religion, the document puts the God’s willing of “diversity of religions” alongside diversities that we know He has positively willed: “colour, sex, race, language.” This is unacceptable to faithful Catholics.
Regarding the proposed “House of the Abrahamic Family,” Archbishop Viganò writes, “In the garden of Abu-Dhabi, the Temple of the World Syncretic Neo-Religion is about to arise with its anti-Christic dogmas. Not even the most hopeful of the Freemasons would have imagined so much!”
Did your eyes go big, as mine did, at the word “Freemasons”? This was not a typical statement emanating from a modern episcopal residence. False irenicism has been dealt a beautiful and much-deserved defenestration.
Elsewhere, the former papal diplomat says:
The building of the House of the Abrahamic Family appears like a Babelesque enterprise, designed by the enemies of God, of the Catholic Church and of the only true religion capable of saving man and the whole created [order] from destruction, both present as well as eternal and definitive. The foundations of this “House,” destined to give way and crumble, precisely where, at the hands of the same builders, the Only Corner Stone is incredibly about to be removed: Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord, on whom stands the House of God. “Therefore,” warns the Apostle Paul, “let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 3:10) [emphasis mine]
He speaks of the “enemies of God” and “of the Catholic Church”! He calls ours, “the only true religion capable of saving man”! Does that sound familiar? Not to most Catholics, who are not used to such statements from a bishop, much less from a bishop who spent his career as a diplomat.
His grace even quotes the intrepid Dom Prosper-Louis-Pascal Guéranger (author of the monumental Liturgical Year) saying this:
Today more than ever … the Church needs strong and coherent doctrines. Amid the dissolution… the compromises become more and more sterile, and each of them takes away a shred of truth… Show yourself then… who you are in the end, convinced Catholics…! There is a grace tied to the full and integral confession of faith. This confession, the Apostle tells us, is the salvation of those who make it, and experience shows that it is also the salvation of those who understand it. (Dom Prosper-Louis-Pascal Guéranger, The Christian Meaning of History).
For more such gems from Archbishop Viganò, please see “Abp Viganò decries Pope-approved plan to build ‘Abrahamic’ religious site with Muslims, Jews”, by Diane Montagna at Life Site.
May God grant the Archbishop the grace to continue his powerful witness!
