Posted on 04/27/2022 7:06:48 PM PDT by marshmallow
Newly obtained correspondence shows the deposed Bishop of Arecibo repeatedly denied allegations that he had been disobedient to Pope Francis, and says he attempted to resolve some issues of disagreement between himself and other Puerto Rican bishops in the months before he was removed from office.
“Offering my resignation would be the same as declaring myself guilty of something of which I am consciously innocent, and would imply becoming an accomplice in a way of proceeding that is foreign to the Church.”
“That I have been … disobedient to the pope is a totally false statement. However, in an unacceptable way, I am told to submit my resignation under the pretext that failure to do so would be taken as evidence of the disobedience to which I am falsely accused,” Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres wrote in December 2021 to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
The letter was one of several in which Fernandez pushed back on a Vatican request for his resignation.
Despite those protests, the Holy See announced in March that Pope Francis had “relieved” Fernández of the pastoral care of his diocese, and appointed an apostolic administrator to assume governance of the diocese.
No official explanation was given for the highly unusual move, and sources close to the bishop say there was no obvious reason for intervention, no notable local scandal, and no indications of malfeasance.
(Excerpt) Read more at pillarcatholic.com ...
Very rigid.
Chilling effect on other Bishops. This was the message.
“Media reports at the time noted that Fernandez had declined to sign a joint statement with the other bishops of Puerto Rico on “the moral duty to be vaccinated” against the coronavirus, even after he was asked to do so by the island’s apostolic delegate.”
In addition, he had been sending seminarians to the University of Navarra in Spain, an excellent, orthodox school run mostly by Opus Dei.
His sin was to be orthodox, the one unforgivable sin in the Church of Francis.
Better to obey the Word of God,
than the word of man...
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