The Viganò Testimony: Was It Justified or Was It a Violation of an Oath?

Fr Zed addresses the accusation that Archbishop Vigano forswore himself by revealing what he knew in violation of the 'Pontifical Secret'.

From Fr Z's Blog

For a while I’ve been mulling The Viganò Testimony, as have we all.

When it came out, some libtards, especially those who are energetically defending the heavily embattled Card. Wuerl, said that we should attack equally other (more conservative) figures, because they knew things too, but didn’t divulge them, for example: Archbp. Broglio of the Military Archdiocese had been Card. Sodano’s secretary.  “Surely he knew things but he didn’t say or do anything!  GET HIM!”

The problem is that many of the people who “knew things” were at some point bound by the “Pontifical Secret”.  When you work in certain positions, as in the Curia, you take an oath to keep secret the work you have to do.  Violation of that oath has spiritual and canonical consequences.

Most have kept the oath.  Archbp. Viganò broke it in order to blow the whistle.

He could be censured for doing so.

However, there is an argument to be made that, given the gravity of The Present Crisis, breaking that oath was a better thing to do than to keep silent, lest greater harm result to the Church.

ChurchMilitant has a useful piece about this right now HERE.  I’d been thinking along these lines for a while, actually.  So, their piece is welcome and helpful.    There you read, inter alia:

The patron saint of moral theologians and Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, has written the following opinions in his magnum opus, his Theologia Moralis [draft translation]:

One may manifest a committed secret [secretum commissum], at least without grave sin: … 4°. Out of a just reason, namely if observing the secret might lead to damnum commune [harm to the common good] … because in this case, the order of charity postulates that it may be revealed: wherefore even if you mightest have taken an oath, in this case, you mayest divulge [the committed secret]. … [III, 970] No one is bound by a secret, even should it have been promised by oath, when the secret leads to damnum commune [VI, 698].