The Foundation — Defende Ecclesiam tuam
About us
The Church is passing through a most grave crisis, mirroring that of civil governments: those who hold positions of power have shown themselves enemies of the institution they oversee and of the people over whom they exercise their authority. This subversive action leads those who are unwilling to accept the betrayal to become objects of persecution: just as the doctors who chose to treat their patients during the pandemic were struck off the register and deprived of their salary, so the priests and religious who do not conform to the Bergoglian revolution are removed from churches, driven out of convents and left without means of subsistence.
To this end, under my personal patronage, the civil association Exsurge Domine was established, whose social purpose is «to provide for the assistance, support and material aid of clerics, religious and consecrated laypeople who find themselves in conditions of particular economic and logistical difficulty; to defend the unchanged and incorruptible Tradition of the Catholic Faith; to preserve and promote the traditional liturgy; to encourage the study and the theological and cultural deepening of the immense religious, historical and artistic heritage of Christendom; and to foster occasions for dialogue and encounter among the various associations, experiences or groups operating within the perennial Tradition of the Catholic Church».
Since April 2024, Exsurge Domine has become a Foundation, so as to be able to operate at an international level and to commit itself to the assistance of religious persecuted on account of their fidelity to Tradition. Anyone who shares these aims may contribute as a supporter, including by allocating the 5×1000 of their tax return.
In this spirit of true Christian fraternity and of renewed unity in the bond of Faith, Hope and Charity, we can give an edifying example to our persecuted brethren, a warning to unfaithful Pastors, and a hope to our children: only holy priests, faithful to the Gospel and in love with Christ, will rebuild what for too long we have allowed to be torn down.
From the association to the Foundation
The Association is born
Exsurge Domine
The Exsurge Domine Association was born out of an awareness of a grave ecclesial crisis, which has recently turned into an outright persecution of those priests and religious who refuse to bow to the apostasy and betrayal of the Hierarchy. Priests driven out of their parishes, monasteries and convents subjected to intimidating inspections, superiors removed without cause, religious men and women threatened with exclaustration, seminarians prevented from completing their formation: such cases are multiplying, and with them grow the situations of genuine need of so many good souls who find themselves without a home, without an income, without the means to live with dignity. Their fault is to resist the rampant apostasy, to be bound to Tradition. The mercy that today is denied not even to heretical clerics and corrupt, immoral prelates does not apply to them. Exsurge Domine extends a hand to these priests and religious, for it will be thanks to them that the body of the Church may one day be purified and return to fidelity to the Lord.
Exsurge Domine ETS
The Foundation
After a year of activity as a civil association, Exsurge Domine officially became a Foundation as a Third Sector entity. This allows it to operate under a favourable tax regime and to receive donations and testamentary bequests of movable and immovable property. There is also the possibility of allocating the 5×1000, indicating on the tax return "Fondazione Exsurge Domine ETS" and the tax code 96584230583.
Our work
Fondazione Exsurge Domine
In 2025 the Foundation became more structured internally and intensified its relations with institutes and individuals, not only in Italy but also in the United States of America, Scotland, France, Hungary and New Zealand. During this period it carried out numerous institutional activities, including: aid and support for priests in material difficulty and for medical and healthcare expenses; support for seminarians for board, lodging and teaching materials; the recovery, restoration and return to worship of sacred furnishings and vestments; the purchase and restoration of sacristy furniture; the production of liturgical aids for choral chant; and the maintenance and safety works of the hermitage.
Who leads the Foundation
Count Giuseppe Vannicelli Casoni
The President of Exsurge Domine is Count Giuseppe Vannicelli Casoni, born fifty-two years ago in Florence into a historic Roman family, heir to a glorious ecclesial commitment that was already his father's, Count Giovanni. An agricultural entrepreneur, he manages the family wine estate.
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Long committed to supporting the various traditional Catholic institutions in Italy, he enthusiastically accepted the invitation of H.E. Most Rev. Carlo Maria Viganò to found — together with a group of the faithful — and to preside over the Foundation.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Archbishop and Apostolic Nuncio. H.E. Most Rev. Carlo Maria Viganò was born in Varese, Italy, on 16 January 1941. Ordained a priest on 24 March 1968 in the Diocese of Pavia, he earned a doctorate in utroque iure.
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His Excellency began his service in the Diplomatic Corps of the Holy See as an attaché in Iraq and Kuwait in 1973, then moved to the Apostolic Nunciature in the United Kingdom. From 1978 to 1989 he worked at the Secretariat of State and was then appointed Special Envoy with the functions of Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Consecrated on 26 April 1992 by John Paul II as Titular Archbishop of Ulpiana, that same year he was appointed Pro-Nuncio Apostolic to Nigeria and, in 1998, Delegate for Pontifical Representations at the Secretariat of State. From 2009 to 2011 he served as Secretary General of the Governorate of Vatican City State, and in 2011 Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America. He retired in May 2016 upon reaching the age limit.
Today he is the only free voice in the Catholic Church, courageously continuing his episcopal ministry in the defence of the unchangeable Tradition of the Church and in the preservation of the Catholic Priesthood.
Collegium Traditionis
The Foundation's first project: to offer a model of Catholic Priesthood bound to personal sanctification and to fraternal life on the Tridentine model, in a 1538 hermitage near Viterbo to be restored and returned to priestly formation.