That of the new archbishop of Paris is the latest of the important appointments made by Pope Francis. The newly appointed Laurent Ulrich, former bishop of Chambéry and then of Lille, is generally classified as a moderate progressive, close to Jorge Mario Bergoglio in his sensitivity to migrants and in the identification of “clericalism” as the true root of sexual abuse.
But more than this appointment, it is the way in which the predecessor had to leave office that characterizes the pope’s management style. Michel Aupetit, archbishop of Paris since 2017, was swamped by a massive opinion campaign that dredged up and turned against him an alleged relationship with a secretary, shelved years before by the ecclesiastical authorities as baseless. Francis, as is known, considers like the plague what he calls “chatter,” which he has branded dozens of times as even more criminal than terrorism, yet he did not hesitate to sacrifice Aupetit on what he himself, the pope, has called “the altar of hypocrisy.”
In 2020, the dismissal as archbishop of Lyon of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, acquitted in court but swamped by a media wave of accusations over an alleged abuse coverup, had also stooped to this tactic.
Hanging in the balance, under the blows of a similar opinion process, is now the archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, in reality targeted for being one of the few prominent critics of the “synodal path” of the Church of Germany. Also under fire is Milan archbishop Mario Delpini, he too accused of having covered up abuses.
Paris, Lyon, Cologne, Milan are all dioceses of the highest magnitude. Yet in them, through the dismissals of their respective officeholders, what plays the master is the “altar of hypocrisy,” even for the pope.
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The diocese of Rome is another in which the criteria for dismissal and appointment adopted by Francis appear very haphazard.
The bishop of Rome is the pope, even if Bergoglio does not seem to exert himself much in this role. That of vicar is therefore a key position, which Francis assigned in 2017 to Angelo De Donatis, promoted to cardinal the following year.
However, the idyll between the two was short-lived. The cardinal vicar’s fall from grace was marked by a March 13 2020 letter from him to the faithful, in the middle of the Covid pandemic.
The day before, De Donatis had issued a decree ordering the complete closure, for three weeks, of all the churches in Rome.
Except that on the morning of March 13, at the beginning of the Mass that he celebrated in solitude at Santa Marta and was streamed over the internet, Pope Francis disavowed the “drastic measures” decreed the day before by his vicar as “not good” and lacking in “discernment.” And that same morning Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the pope’s “almoner” and highly trusted operative arm, theatrically opened the door of the Roman church of which he is rector, showing off his disobedience.
All De Donatis could do was take it back, issuing that same day a counter-decree to reopen the churches. But he accompanied it with a letter to the faithful in which he informed them that the unfortunate closure had been adopted “after consulting our bishop Pope Francis.”
Bergoglio did not forgive him for that. Since that day, not only Cardinal De Donatis but the entire vicariate of Rome has been on the skids. Without a vicegerent, a key position vacant since 2017 and assigned for only a few months to a bishop, Gianpiero Palmeri, initially close to Francis’s heart but soon also fallen from grace and sent to Ascoli Piceno. Without an auxiliary bishop for the eastern sector of Rome. With the two auxiliary bishops for the northern and southern sectors of the city, Guerino Di Tora and Paolo Selvadagi, resigning due to age limits and still awaiting successors.
Meanwhile, rumors are going around that De Donatis will soon be removed as vicar and placed in the curia, perhaps to act as major penitentiary, certainly not a promotion. While in his place Francis would call back to Rome, from Siena where he is now archbishop, Cardinal Augusto Paolo Lojudice, De Donatis’s former auxiliary for the southern sector of Rome and he indeed close to the pope’s heart.
Not only that. For Lojudice the way also seems to have opened up to be appointed by Francis as president of the Italian episcopal conference, replacing Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, 80, whose term expired in this month of May.
Bassetti is another who has fallen from the altars into the dust, according to the pope’s mood.
Francis could never endure his resistance to doing what he himself, the pope, wanted done in Italy, in the first place a national synod. And vice versa, the pope has never been pleased with what Bassetti has done on his own initiative, in particular the double international conference, the first time in Bari and the second in Florence, of the Churches and nations of the Mediterranean, for peace between peoples and religions, with the attendance of the bishops and mayors of the main cities, from Jerusalem to Athens to Istanbul.
Misfortune would have it that the conference in Florence opened on the same day, February 24 2022, as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It is true that the Black Sea and the Azov Sea are also part of the Mediterranean, but that area was certainly not the focus of the program. Which foresaw on the concluding Sunday, February 27, the arrival of the pope, with his speech and the meeting with the bishops and mayors.
But then, as the conference got underway, Francis canceled his visit to Florence, citing mobility problems. Going in his place would be cardinal secretary of state Pietro Parolin, who was to read the pope’s speech. But then not even Parolin went, and it was up to Bassetti to celebrate the concluding Mass, without so much as the pope’s speech, which also disappeared. There remained to be heard what Francis would say about the conference at the Angelus, so big screens were set up inside and outside the Florentine basilica of Santa Croce on which the pope could be see and heard on live TV. Among the bystanders, in anxious anticipation, was also the president of the Italian republic, Sergio Mattarella. Well then, at the Angelus Francis did not dedicate even one word to the meeting on the Mediterranean. A rumor broke out, never substantiated, that this silence of his was in condemnation of the presence in Florence of a senior executive of Leonardo, the largest Italian arms manufacturer. In reality, the true reason was to humiliate Bassetti and the Italian bishops’ conference he presided over.
As the new president of the CEI, the pope has already made it known, in a conversation last April 23 with the vicar and auxiliaries of the diocese of Rome and then on May 2 with “Corriere della Sera” director Luciano Fontana, that he intends to appoint “a cardinal.” From which it has been deduced that he will choose between Lojudice and Matteo Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna, and that the chosen one will almost certainly be the former.
This could mean a comeback for the identification between vicar of Rome and president of the CEI that characterized the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, with Cardinal Camillo Ruini playing both roles, in close connection with the pope.
As for Zuppi, it is likely that he is not eager to get the appointment. As the frontrunner among the papabili, he has no interest in a presidency of the CEI that would bring him more disadvantages than advantages, and even less in a proximity to Francis too marked for those who aspire to succeed him.
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Also on the criteria of the dismissal and appointment of bishops practiced by Pope Francis, one can point out the “relieving” of Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, 57, “from the pastoral care” of the Puerto Rican diocese of Arecibo.
No reason at all has been given for the forced “relieving” either by the Vatican communiqué of March 9 2022 or by the episcopal conference of Puerto Rico. Even the dismissed bishop has said that “it is not up to me to explain a decision I cannot explain to myself.”
It is not the first time bishops have been removed by Francis, but always having them sign an act of voluntary resignation. This time, the first, in which the bishop refused to give in - declaring, on the contrary, that he wanted to proceed “with head held high” and that he felt “fortunate to suffer persecution and slander for having announced the truth of human dignity” - the pope “relieved” him by force.
But it is not even the first time Francis has dismissed a bishop without giving explanations. Rumor has it that Fernández Torres has been punished for supporting conscientious objection against Covid vaccination requirements. But that would be too little for such a drastic sentence.
Archbishop emeritus of La Plata Héctor Aguer, a rare free voice of the Argentine episcopate, has said that he is acquainted with and respects the dismissed Puerto Rican bishop and that he was able to visit his “magnificent diocese, with great pastoral activity and a blossoming of vocations.”
Bishop and Jesuit Álvaro Corrada del Río, charged by Rome with administering the diocese of Arecibo pending the appointment of the successor, then said during a meeting with the clergy of Puerto Rico that the “relieving” of Fernández Torres had been preceded by the secret apostolic visit of a cardinal, Chicago archbishop Blase Cupich, very close to Pope Francis.
The fact is that the sentence was handed down without declaring the charges or giving a voice to the defense.
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The last exemplary appointment, on February 19, was that of the new archbishop of Turin in the person of the theologian Roberto Repole, 55.
Repole has no experience in governing a diocese and was not among the candidates most in view. In choosing him Francis took everyone by surprise, not afraid of reviving attention to a ticklish moment in his pontificate, the one that brought glaringly into the open the fundamental contrast between pope emeritus Benedict XVI and the circle of ecclesiastics closest to Bergoglio.
The incident broke out in 2017, over the publication by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana of a series of eleven brief books written by as many theologians, intended to “show the depth of the theological roots of the thought, actions, and ministry of Pope Francis.”
Joseph Ratzinger was asked to write a presentation of the eleven books, praising their content and recommending that they be read.
But Ratzinger refused. He wrote in a letter to then head of Vatican communications Dario Viganò that he didn’t even intend to read those books, because among their authors were some of his long-standing enemies, foremost among them the German theologian Peter Hünermann, “who during my pontificate put himself in the spotlight by leading anti-papal initiatives.”
It was Settimo Cielo that made public the parts of Ratzinger’s letter that Viganò had tried in vain to conceal. The incident cost the monsignor his job, but not his proximity to the pope, who still holds him dear today. The fact is that the affair marked a rift no longer healed in the relations between the reigning pope, the pope emeritus, and their respective circles, according to the reconstruction of the vaticanista Massimo Franco, columnist for ‘Corriere della Sera,” in a book that came out last month.
Well then, who was the editor of the eleven books, as well as the author of one of them? Roberto Repole, now promoted by Pope Francis as archbishop of Turin.
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