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ROME, September 4, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has responded to Vatican pushback against his statement on Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis, saying the majority of claims made by Fr. Thomas Rosica and Fr. Federico Lombardi are “in their imagination.”

Viganò also said the media now needs to “deal with the real problem: that Francis covered up for McCarrick for five years, allowing him to claim other victims.”

On Sunday, Fr. Federico Lombardi and Fr. Thomas Rosica — who handled the Holy See’s press response to Pope Francis’ private meeting with Kim Davis in 2015 — issued a joint statement disputing Viganò’s three-page account detailing the circumstances surrounding Pope Francis’ private meeting with Kim Davis on September 24, 2015.

In their statement, Rosica and Lombardi admitted to the “fact that Viganò had spoken the night before the meeting (with Kim Davis) with the pope and his collaborators and had received a consensus.”

Lombardi and Rosica claimed, however, that Archbishop Viganò told them privately the Pope felt “deceived” by him, not because of Davis’ stand against the legalization of same-sex “marriage,” but because of her marital history.

“You never told me that she had four husbands,” Pope Francis allegedly told Viganò, Lombardi and Rosica said.

In comments this morning to LifeSiteNews, Archbishop Viganò doubled down on his initial statement, insisting that Pope Francis “never mentioned Kim Davis” during their meeting at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, on October 9, 2015.

“Concerning the fact that she was married four times,” Viganò said, “I told [Pope Francis] about this in our previous conversation on September 23, before going to Becciu and Gallagher. Indeed, I added that after her ‘conversion’ to a charismatic church, she took back her second husband,” he noted. Cardinal Giovanni Becciu was at that time an archbishop and Substitute for General Affairs in the Secretariat of State. Archbishop Paul Gallagher is the Secretary for Relations with States within the Secretariat.

Archbishop Viganò continued: “The only thing that is true in what Lombardi and Rosica said is that I called them to come over to where I was staying. I only shared with them my grievances over the falsity with which they presented the Pope’s private audience with Davis at the Press Office.”

“The rest of what they said is in their imagination,” he said.

Since the release of his extraordinary 11-page statement implicating Pope Francis and several senior Vatican officials in the McCarrick abuse cover-up, the media has chiefly focused on questioning or, at times, discrediting Viganò’s credibility. Some have suggested he is a disgruntled former employee, while others have alleged that he himself “quashed” an investigation into Archbishop Neinstedt of St. Paul Minneapolis.

Viganò has addressed the Neinstedt case with supporting documentation.

In his comments today, Archbishop Viganò said he is finished responding to questions about his own person, adding that it’s time for journalists to investigate the substance of the allegations contained in his 11-page testimony. He said:

“Having clarified my position regarding [the Neinstedt case in] St. Paul and Minneapolis, and having had this confirmed by Auxiliary Bishop Cozzens, and having further clarified the Kim Davis audience, I do not now intend to return to matters regarding my own person. The media must continue to deal with the real problem: that Francis covered up for McCarrick for five years, allowing him to claim other victims.”

“From now on, I have nothing more to add. Now it is up to the media not to let it go, and to continue to do their part,” Viganò said.

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