The Pontificate of Purges: Ten Years of Defenestrations

It’s not only Strickland. The long series of bishops removed prematurely by Pope Francis has accelerated in the last year and a half: strike one to educate a hundred. Each individual case is perplexing, but the total number is shocking. We are talking about the defenestrations of bishops by Pope Francis, which have marked his entire pontificate.

The latest egregious case was that of the Bishop of Tyler (see here), Msgr Joseph Strickland, who, after pressure from the Nuncio for his ‘voluntary’ resignation, was removed from his diocese, without any explanation being given. There is no record of any financial or sexual scandal against him, still less that he was guilty of heresy (which would probably have advanced his career); more simply, Strickland seems to have committed the crime of lèse-majesté, repeatedly taking positions not pleasing to the ecclesiastical Politburo: resistance to vaccines based on foetal cell lines, opposition to the blessing of gay couples, resistance to Traditionis Custodes. And then that unforgivable vice of wanting to continue to have numerous seminarians: 21 in training, in a diocese of just over 130,000 baptised and 84 priests.

A vice that Strickland shares with another bishop caught in the crosshairs: Msgr Domique Rey, bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, in whose diocese priestly ordinations have been frozen for over a year, and an apostolic visitation is in progress. The solution seems to be on the horizon: according to Jean-Marie Guénois (see here) it would be an “honourable way out (…) both for Msgr Rey – who remains in his post – and for his pastoral work”. It would be the appointment as coadjutor of the diocese of Fréjus-Toulone of Msgr François Touvet, Bishop of Châlons en Champagne, who would flank Msgr Rey with right of succession; a sort of diarchy for the four years separating Rey from the fateful 75 years. Or more realistically, if one thinks of what happened to the Bishop of Albenga-Imperia, Msgr Mario Oliveri, a freezing of the ordinary bishop’s faculties. It is rather difficult to understand how a bishop’s full power of jurisdiction over his diocese and the sharing out of this jurisdiction with a coadjutor can stand together.

But Strickland and Rey are the latest in a long series that, in our recollection, had begun with the removal on 25 September 2014 of the Bishop of Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), Msgr Roger Ricardo Livieres Plano, a member of Opus Dei, who had refused to resign under pressure from the Holy See. Several criticisms weighed on him: having taken in a US priest accused of abuse of a boy over 18, whose case was later dismissed for lack of evidence; mismanagement of diocese funds; and then the great fault of having wanted to erect an independent seminary in his own diocese.

Continue reading at New Daily Compass

Pontifical Defenestrations

Our table includes those clergy mentioned in this article as well as others we believe should be included in the list. Have a suggested addition? Send us an email at info@complicitclergy.com.