A STATEMENT TO camera delivered by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, in which he endorses a number of conspiracy theories has been shared widely online, despite containing verifiably false statements.

Viganò, who is from Italy, had a number of high-profile roles in the church, including acting as the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States. He was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 2024 after a number of scandals. 

The clip features Viganò saying that a German lawyer called Reiner Fuellmich, who claimed that the Covid-19 pandemic was largely an invention, was put in jail to shut him up.

“His crime is having dared to speak the truth in a world of criminal lies,” Viganò says in the video,.

This, however, is false. Fuellmich was found guilty in a German court of embezzling money.

One version of the video in which Vigano makes the claim was shared on the verified Facebook account of Damo & Ivor, an Irish account which posts false claims and conspiracy theories, some of which have previously been factchecked by The Journal.

The video has been viewed more than 177,000 times since being posted to the account on 17 November.

In the video, Viganò alleges a global conspiracy to commit “the greatest crime ever against humanity”.

Although he does not name this “crime”, he has previously claimed that measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 were a pretext to abolish Christianity and create a tyrannical global government, which tallies with the rest of what he says in the video.

Viganò was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 2024 for schism — usually referred to as causing a rift in the church, though in canon law it can mean, more specifically, “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff [the Pope]“.

The sentence was passed after numerous controversies, including Viganò supporting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, publicly accusing Pope Francis of covering up a child abuse scandal, as well as calling for his removal for committing heresy, alongside disputes over what sacraments should be considered legitimate.

Viganò did not turn up at the hearing to defend himself. The sentence was passed in his absence.

While Viganò can no longer carry out the duties of a priest, he still carries the title of Archbishop, as removal of clerical titles is dealt with separately in canon law.

“Among the victims of the totalitarian regime [..] is lawyer Reiner Fuellmich,” Viganò says in the video viewed widely on Facebook. “Unjustly in prison and still waiting for fair trial.

“His crime is having dared to speak the truth in a world of criminal lies.”

This is not true, even in a figurative sense.

Fuellmich’s crime was embezzling money; specifically, he embezzled from an organisation that raised millions from donors to document what it saw as mismanagement, fraud, and crimes by authorities in response to Covid-19.

The Göttingen Regional Court found that Fuellmich had violated the bylaws of a Covid-skeptic group called the “Corona Committee”.

It found that he had transferred €700,000 to the bank accounts of himself and his wife, some of which was then spent for personal purposes, including installing a hot tub as part of a €200,000 garden renovation.

Fuellmich said that other members of the “Corona Committee” had lent him the money and had turned against him to “line their own pockets“.

According to German media, Fuellmich was sentenced to three years and nine months in April.

The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.