Carlo Maria Viganò, the former apostolic nuncio to the United States who, at the end of August was the protagonist of a sensational political-media operation against Pope Francis, culminating in the publication of a pamphlet asking for the resignation of the Pontiff, has lost the civil lawsuit that saw him opposed to his brother priest for the management of a conspicuous family inheritance. A judgment of the fourth section of the Civil Court of Milan last October sentenced him in fact to compensate Don Lorenzo Viganò for one million and 800 thousand euros, along with interest and court costs.
Archbishop Carlo Maria and his brother Don Lorenzo, a scholar of Mesopotamian civilization, jointly held their substantial family assets, which in 2010 included real estate for an estimated value of about 20 million euros plus a significant cash sum of more than six million euros. The inheritance had always been managed by archbishop Viganò, for a long time Delegate for the papal representations, then secretary of the Vatican Governorate and finally apostolic nuncio to Washington after breaking off relations with the Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone and with Pope Benedict XVI himself.
The former nuncio, according to the sentence, had continued to receive the real estate revenues and the cash availability, obtaining a total of “transactions for a net amount of 3,649,866.25 euros”. Half of this amount will now have to be paid to his brother Don Lorenzo. The priest was sued by the archbishop on the eve of Vatileaks, when Viganò tried to remain in the Vatican by writing to Benedict XVI that he could not take up the post of apostolic nuncio to the United States because of the illness of his brother whom he had to take care of.
It’s true that Don Lorenzo Viganò, resident in Chicago, had been struck by a stroke that forced him to use a wheelchair, yet it’s not true that his brother Vigano’s mission to the US would have prevented him from taking care of him. In fact, it would have brought them closer. It had emerged at that time that the relationship between the two brothers was compromised precisely because of issues related to the management of the inheritance. Don Lorenzo had already sued Carlo Maria in 2010. In recent weeks the civil court reached its first sentence on the case.
As you will remember, on 26 August last Carlo Maria Viganò published, thanks to the anti-papal political-media circuit based in the United States and Italy, a testimony with accusations (and significant omissis) against Francis over the case of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington and molester of seminarians. The prelate, repeatedly promoted from the ’eighties to 2000, was heavily sanctioned by Pope Bergoglio - who took away his purple hat with a measure that had not happened in the Catholic Church for 91 years - when - for the first time - a credible accusation of historical child abuse emerged against the almost ninety-year-old former cardinal.
Viganò, supported by several American bishops, has carved out a leading role in recent weeks, arriving two days ago to sign a message to all the participants in the meeting of the United States Episcopal Conference to ask them to resist the Pope.
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