The statement came at the end of the first day of a three-day meeting of the "C-9", a group of nine cardinals from around the world who meet with the pope at the Vatican several times a year to advise him on Church matters. In an 11-page statement published on Aug. 26, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador to Washington, launched an unprecedented broadside by a Church insider against the pope and a long list of Vatican and U.S. Church officials. The cardinals' statement said they had expressed their "total solidarity with the pope over events of the last few weeks" and added that the Holy See was preparing "eventual and necessary clarifications".



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