The siblings of Fr Lorenzo Viganò refute the absurd accusations brought against Monsignor Carlo Maria

A few days after the election of the new Pope, the newspapers 'Corriere della Sera', 'Il
Giornale', and 'La Stampa', published interviews with our brother Fr Lorenzo Viganò
(among other things, they were packed with obvious factual errors: how could a Jesuit,
with a vow of total poverty, own real estate?) and these contained totally unfounded,
defamatory statements against the person of Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò.

Against insults and slander, which his brother Lorenzo brought against him, and those
spread all over the world against him by those responsible for the so-called 'Vatileaks',
Monsignor Carlo Maria decided, for love of the Church, that he never wanted to reply
to these. We siblings feel obliged to do so, in defense of his good name, knowing that
Carlo Maria would choose to continue to remain silent, thus, allowing himself to be
defamed without defending himself rather than causing damage to the Church.

We shall describe who our brother, Carlo Maria, really is, how much he has done to
help Lorenzo, how much he has sacrificed for the good of the Church, and whoever
has truly known him can testify to this!

We three brothers of these two Priests, with our older sister, are deeply saddened and
hurt by the aberrant behavior of our brother Lorenzo, and although continuing to love
him, we refute what he has claimed, as we know full well that Lorenzo was hit by a
massive stroke in 1996 which profoundly affected him.

We therefore wish to answer those who upon reading his shocking statements would
ask: what are the motivations behind these remarks? Who pushed him to act in such
an inconsiderate way, and especially now, given that our brothers Lorenzo and Carlo
Maria have been in perfect harmony their entire lives, even sharing the ideal of the
Priesthood with both of them having and agreeing as they did until now to allocate
their common goods for the Church's apostolate and for charity?

It all started in November 2008 with a sudden and unpredictable event. Being both of
advanced age, in September 2008 they had agreed, in the presence of one of our
brothers, in an atmosphere of great serenity and understanding, to divide their wealth
in order to carry out further works of charity and for the Church. Among other things,
following the example of our parents and in accordance with their vocation, they
decided particularly to donate a large part of their assets to build a Carmelite
Monastery in Burundi, in Gitega, and also a Novitiate for a missionary congregation in
Burkina Faso, Africa.
Once everything had already been prepared to carry out this plan, suddenly and
without any logical reason, in November 2008, Fr Lorenzo, with the help of our sister
Rosanna, literally fled from the house in Milan for Chicago, unbeknownst to any of us,
then claiming that he did this to avoid being 'kidnapped' by Carlo Maria, doing this
with the complicity of other family friends. It should be noted that Fr Lorenzo
reiterated this absurd reason again during a Family Court hearing at the Tribunal of
Milan: being asked to explain why in the Autumn of 2008 that he had suddenly fled
from Italy, and had abruptly ended all relations with his family, he went as far as saying,
in an angry voice, that he had fled from Italy 'in order not to be shackled'.

Who pushed him into such unreasonable, not to mention, mindless behavior? One has
only to see that within just a few weeks after his getaway, Fr Lorenzo - who had always
kept us his siblings fully informed in relation to the administration of his assets, and
who had always had full control over decisions regarding the common assets he shared
with Carlo Maria - then unilaterally transferred, without rightfully informing Carlo
Maria, a huge sum of money to one of Rosanna's accounts, which he lied about
claiming that he wanted to take this for his livelihood and for his old age. The payment
of this large sum to Rosanna demonstrates that Fr Lorenzo had full access to the assets
that he shared in communion with Carlo Maria, contrary to what he later affirmed,
and especially as his standard of living, in light of his disabled condition, required a
considerable amount of money.

For over forty years Fr Lorenzo has handled his own assets, by giving precise spoken
and written instructions to the family's historical advisors and receiving timely reports,
signing checks, arranging donations, signing transfers of immovable property, having
all the same powers of representation that Carlo Maria also had. These are the facts
that were duly discovered in indisputable evidence within the cases of documents
which were already produced in the civil cases, which Lorenzo began against Carlo
Maria.

Suffice to say that the large sum of money was used by Rosanna to buy a second
pharmacy in Como, for her youngest daughters, Anna Maria Buzzi, from Giancola, who
was married under a communal estate settlement with the lawyer Francesco Giancola,
son of the proprietor of the Giancola law firm ('Studio legale Giancola') in Como, Italy.
These facts were ascertained during the judicial investigations.

Just think that concurrently, Fr Lorenzo issued general and all-encompassing

authorization to his above-mentioned young lawyer, who then immediately ousted
the faithful, tried and tested administrator of the family assets on behalf of Fr Lorenzo.
Since the Autumn of 2008, Fr Lorenzo has refused to have any relationship with his
siblings, particularly with Carlo Maria, and continues to reject any kind of contact with
family and friends, and even with the Cardinal of Chicago. He has been living in that
American Archdiocese for years without ecclesiastical permission and refuses to
present himself - or even to open his door - to the authorities of that Archdiocese
contrary to the provisions of Canon Law.

Every attempt of contact or mediation in order to try to understand what has

happened to him, even by his few friends in Chicago, has been dismissed by him or by
someone acting in his name. He even refused to meet his older brother who was
already visiting the United States. Since that Autumn in 2008, therefore, Fr Lorenzo
has remained completely isolated from us siblings, and it is not known whether this is
by his own exclusive will, as we remain at the mercy of our sister, Rosanna, and the
aforementioned law firm, for any information.

The lawyer, Francesco Giancola, after declining any attempt at dialogue even with the
lawyers of Carlo Maria, in violation of the professional code of ethics, with the support
of the entire law firm of his father, after only a few months, used the ‘power of
attorney’ of Fr Lorenzo and sued Carlo Maria for the division of property, while
producing data on the value of the common heritage of the two brothers which was
completely inflated far beyond reality and in contradiction to what was declared by Fr
Lorenzo to the Internal Revenue Service and, therefore, irresponsibly exposed his
client to serious legal consequences.

Who pushed Lorenzo to flee perhaps through suggestions and then profited from his
situation? Who would have wanted him to avoid the originally decided division
according to the terms already hypothesized by common agreement? Who had
everything to gain by stopping those who were willing to give to charity?

Perhaps those who fueled Lorenzo's personal obsessions have also pushed him to put
forward two abhorrent allegations against Carlo Maria (in the second of which he even
posited stalking and extortion): these claims have been duly dismissed, and certainly
not with favorable or complacent decisions. Moreover, the disgraceful accusation of
embezzlement (which was also archived), was made by Lorenzo in the knowledge that
he was lying, even against those of us who had saved his life with a timely intervention
at the time of his stroke and that who continued to assist him lovingly during his long
illness.

According to Lorenzo: the judicial police, the public prosecutors, the Italian judges, the
doctors, the priests, the lifetime friends, and we, his own siblings, ourselves are all
plotting with Carlo Maria against him. Someone then, of course, had a real interest in
fomenting in Lorenzo the idea of a plot to 'kidnap him'.

Two different PMs and a Judge for Preliminary Investigations have already commented
on this matter: in addition to pointing out the delay in and impropriety of the nature
of the complaints, and in highlighting serious contradictions in the statements made
by Lorenzo during the course of the investigations, they also found clear justifications
in the merits of the evidence that there was no misappropriation, no pressure, and no
plot by us siblings or Carlo Maria.

Who is the aggressor and who is the assaulted in this affair? It is clear: Carlo Maria
never started any civil or criminal proceedings against Lorenzo, continuing instead to
suffer attacks of all kinds without reacting (pending civil cases, criminal complaints,
and lawsuits regularly filed by Lorenzo). Carlo Maria was morally obliged to make a
complaint against certain undisclosed individuals, doing so not to be against but,
rather, to protect his brother. He was also troubled by the fact that Lorenzo's lawyers
are directly related to Rosanna and her daughter Anna Maria, that is, those who
Lorenzo, while being so suspicious of the rest of the world, had clandestinely decided
to give a huge quantity of money, thus removing it from the common heritage and
therefore from the purpose for which it was already intended: charitable works and
for the Church.

But there's more: the lawyer Francesco Giancola, the son-in-law of Rosanna, was not
content with carrying out his brazen actions just in the Milan courts. Attracted by the
first news of the Vatileaks affair, he would go to the Vatican to link his action with that
of those who opposed the clean-up work that Monsignor Carlo Maria had undertaken
in the name of Pope Benedict. He would be received with indulgence and satisfaction
by the Secretary General of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, Monsignor
Sciacca, also delivering a biased memoir, distorting the true facts and portraying
instead what was later picked up by the media.

In the hope that this account becomes dismissed, his acknowledgement would open
disturbing scenarios. In fact, would not it be convenient for those who had been guilty
of staining themselves in episodes of mismanagement and unsavory business within
the institutions of the Church, to make others believe that 'the moralizer' of the Curia
had he himself a murky past to hide? And, in this case, what better ally than a brother
afflicted by illness, suffering from the delirium of persecution, who has refused every
pacifying encounter not only with his brother priest but also with us his siblings,
common friends, people of the church, and even his spiritual father, Fr Giulio
Giacometti?
The entourage of our brother Lorenzo wants to paint Lorenzo as a frightened victim of
his powerful brother Carlo Maria: but it is an absolutely distorted picture. This
campaign has been clearly used to easily exploit the voice of Lorenzo's unconscious
initiatives and declarations to destroy the public image of Monsignor Carlo Maria, in
the context of the affair now sadly known by the name of Vatileaks.

Lorenzo appears to be anything but frightened. With his latest statements to the press,
he has literally destroyed our family name. But, despite everything, we continue, and
we are sure also that Carlo Maria continues, to love him as a brother: Lorenzo is a
victim of those around him.

This is a real tragedy for our family, a source of pain and concern: but we continue to
hope that one day our brother Lorenzo can return to talk with his siblings, realizing
that those who have supported his latest statements are using him as a mere pawn to
destroy the reputation of our brother Carlo Maria. And above all we continue to pray
that, at the end of this affair, the goods of our brother priests may have the intended
purpose desired by our parents, that is, to be donated to the works of charity of the
Church, so that especially in the poorest countries the Gospel may spread and that
help can be given to the most needy people, as our brother Carlo Maria has always
done in the service of the Holy See in mission countries.

Knowing that this was also the will of our brother Lorenzo, other parties took legal
steps to prevent this from happening to profit from it, and this was done to the
detriment of what had already been decided by the two brother priests for the sake
of the Church.

Anna Maria, Leonardo, Emilio and Alberto Viganò

20th March 2013