Thread by @JamesMartinSJ

Thread: 1) The most shocking aspect of last week’s coordinated attack on Pope Francis (thanks to Archbishop #Vigano’s “testimony,” which is being discredited by the hour) is how former champions of the papacy rushed to attack, condemn and attempt to delegitimize Pope Francis.

2) It ended caused immense pain among the faithful, at a time when many, if not all, were demoralized by the latest sex abuse crisis.

3) Some US Catholics, even bishops, who under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI acted as if any disagreement with a Pope was tantamount to dissent (or heresy), heaped scorn on Francis, called for resignation, and publicly sided with his accuser, based on unsubstantiated charges

4) But now what will they do? Because the Vigano “testimony” is being discredited piece by piece, hour by hour.

5) The latest reports show that Archbishop Vigano’s much-touted “sanctions” against former Cardinal McCarrick appear to have been “private,” never formalized at all by Benedict, and were more of a recommendation, which blows the bottom out of Vigano's central against Pope Francis

6) If these sanctions were not formalized, and were not applied even under Pope Benedict (as @MikeOLoughlin has shown), this undercuts, if not entirely destroys, Vigano’s “testimony” against Francis’s supposed role in enabling McCarrick.

7) Vigano himself did not go out of his way to enforce the sanctions against someone whose conduct supposedly outraged him. Then how does he explain that while blasting Pope Francis for not doing so?

8) The question, then, ends up turning more on the oversight, or non-oversight, of an abuser and abusive priests not by Francis, but by Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and other Curial officials. The “testimony," then, appears to be leading to scrutiny of unintended people.

9) Here’s the sad point: Many Catholics, including bishops, who under John Paul and Benedict professed their lifelong fidelity to the office of Pope, swiftly turned on a Pope that they didn't like, based on one disgruntled former nuncio’s 11-page unsubstantiated screed.

10) Compare one prelate’s previous comments about the papacy: “I express my deepest gratitude to His Holiness for the great confidence which he has placed in me, and I renew my commitment to serve Him, as Shepherd of the universal Church, in total fidelity and with all my being."

11) That was after he was named a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI. Last week, that same cardinal said publicly that it was “licit” to call for the Pope’s resignation.

12) Some US bishops immediately sided with Vigano, one calling him a “man of truth, faithfulness and integrity” while studiously avoiding the same words for Francis, heedlessly inching us closer to the possibility of schism, or at least more serious division, in the US church.

13) And some of these same US bishops who suddenly professed their outrage over sex abuse as soon it seemed that it could take down Francis, were, just a few days before, completely quiet about the topic, even in the face of the damning Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report.

14) It was the weaponization of the abuse crisis, using the suffering of children and young people to bring down Francis, to increase division among the faithful and to advance their own ecclesial agenda against, to quote that cardinal, “The Shepherd of the Universal Church.”

15/15) All of this darkness caused great pain, confusion and anger among the faithful, as well as among the clergy and religious, and distracted us from the most urgent task, which needs to be taken up again, of preventing abuse. Together, united, as one body.

5) ...central charge...