Francis Disinherits Bishop Rey of Fréjus-Toulon

Bishop Dominique Rey of Frejús-Toulon (center of the picture with two of his canons) is the next victim of Begoglian "mercy". In the fight against tradition, Rome apparently takes no prisoners.

(Rome) After Msgr. Joseph Strickland, a second traditional bishop was deposed within ten days. Pope Francis appointed a coadjutor for the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon who will work alongside and succeed Diocesan Bishop Dominique Rey.

The procedure is Bergoglian: First a visitor is sent, then the attack follows. The result is clear from the start. Msgr. Rey was not immediately fired, but was removed from power. The retirement will follow in a few months. The template for this is provided by the diocese of Albenga-Imperia, which lies on the same Mediterranean beach. There, Bishop Mario Oliveri, who is close to tradition, was given a coadjutor. He then had the say. Msgr. Oliveri was left in office for a few more months and then retired in a second step in 2016.

 

Other examples include Bishop Rogelio Livieres in Paraguay , Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres in Puerto Rico and, just a few days ago, Bishop Joseph Strickland in the USA . They all distinguished themselves, each in their own way, as heralds of truth. For this they were overthrown. Consider the scheming way in which Bishop Rogelio Livieres was summoned to Rome in order to lure him away from his diocese. While he was standing in front of closed doors in Rome, he was informed from home that he had been deposed by Francis.

Bishop Rey, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI. was valued, promoted vocational pastoral care, parish pastoral care, supported the right to life movement, took part in the March for Life in Paris and was close to the civil rights movement Manif pour tous. In particular, he also promoted the traditional rite. Or rather, he recognized an inner unity between evangelization and liturgy. He also supported the establishment of traditional ritual communities such as the Benedictines of the Immaculata or biritual communities such as the Fradernidad St. José Custodio in his diocese.

Bishop Rey was the first diocesan bishop to create faculties for priests of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X in 2017. (FSSPX) can perform weddings in every church in his diocese .

The result of this work was reflected above all in the vocations to the priesthood. While most French dioceses don't even have a new priest every year, the seminary in the small diocese of Fréjus-Toulon was filling up. Although the diocese comprises only 1.6 percent of France's population, it counted around eight percent of all diocesan seminarians. Fréjus-Toulon was the diocese in France that attracted the most vocations. Before the Roman intervention began last year, more than 70 seminarians were prepared for the priesthood at Bishop Rey's seminary.

The closer a diocese or religious community is to tradition, the more vocations it attracts. Rome should think about that. It does, but differently than would be expected.

The flourishing seminary of Fréjus-Toulon was received positively in Rome under Benedict XVI, negatively under Francis. Francis shocked the Catholic world by prohibiting Bishop Rey from conducting the ordinations that had already been scheduled at the beginning of June 2022. Too many seminarians? Too many candidates for ordination? Rome intervened. The diocese and its seminary were drained. Where there is uncertainty about the question of ordination, vocations dry up.

In February 2023, Francis sent an apostolic visitator to Fréjus-Toulon. The next step took place today with the removal of Bishop Rey from power by appointing a coadjutor.

Pope Francis is waging a war on tradition . He eliminates her wherever she appears in the Church outside of the Ecclesia Dei enclosure. No one can currently say whether the enclosure will be retained or leveled once this job is completed. Naivety and illusions are a bad guide.

Francis appointed Monsignor François Touvet, the current Bishop of Châlons, as coadjutor of Bishop Rey. 

Msgr. Rey has since turned to his diocese with a statement. In it he announced that Msgr. Touvet would succeed him in the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon as soon as he himself retired.

Bishop Rey described the ban on ordination as a “collective sanction”, the year and a half since then as “torments (…) that we have suffered since June 2022. This year and a half of waiting has been particularly difficult and painful for all of us, priests, religious, believers and especially seminarians”.

He thanked everyone who “spent this time of trial with me in trust and prayer.”

He greeted Bishop Touvet “like a brother.” He visited the diocese a few years ago to get to know the “missionary spirit that animates our diocese”.

As he himself announced, Pope Francis withdrew Bishop Rey's responsibilities for the following areas: leadership of the clergy, administration, training of seminarians and priests and the support of religious communities. The thrust is obvious.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : MiL

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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Ultraprogressive Cardinal Appointments Upcoming — Liberation Theologian Disciplined By Benedict

Bishop Ricardo Valenzuela with Fernando Lugo, then President of Paraguay. Lugo was previously Bishop of San Pedro. In 2008 he was the liberation theologian laicized by  Pope Benedict XVI. Valenzuela and Lugo had both studied at the Gregoriana in Rome.

(Asuncion) Already in recent weeks, it has been said that Pope Francis might create new cardinals at the end of the month. The media in Paraguay report that this time the South American country is likely to get a cardinal. While at the end of June, as possible timing of cardinal elevations becomes less likely, the number of ultraprogressive contenders for the Cardinal rank is increasing.

The Cardinals under 80 choose the Pope. Any consistory for the creation of new cardinals convened by Pope Francis represents a powerful push towards progressive succession.

At the feast of the apostolic princes Peter and Paul, the Pope traditionally awards the pallium to the metropolitans appointed last year, as the visible sign of their attachment to the Bishop of Rome and the universal Church. In May, voices thickened that the ruling pope could take the opportunity to create new cardinals. The date seemed unusual because there is currently no need, as the full number of papal electors is given. This was last set to 120 by Pope John Paul II. Katholisches.info reported when this need will be restored.

In recent days, "rumors have intensified" that Paraguay will get a cardinal in the next cardinal surveys, as the Paraguayan daily ABC Color said yesterday. As possible contenders for the Cardinalatial purple the newspaper has named Bishop Ricardo Valenzuela of Caacupé (not to be confused with Archbishop Edmundo Valenzuela of Asuncion), Bishop Adalberto Martinez of Villarrica and at the same time President of the Paraguayan Episcopal Conference, and Bishop Francisco Pistilli of Encarnacion. All three have been already promoted by Pope Francis. The greatest opportunities are said to belong to Bishop Valenzuela. A few weeks ago he had already been called to Rome to talk about this issue, local voices said. However, on request from ABC Color, Bishop Valenzuela said "jokingly" that it was "just rumors and nothing more". The trip to Europe did not take him to Rome but to Lourdes.

The Paraguayan episcopacy is strongly liberation theological, as shown by the conflict over Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este  who was an exception in the South American country. Due to disturbance of unity in the episcopate, he was deposed in 2014 by Pope Francis in a despotic manner. He refused a conversation. Bishop Livieres spoke of an "intrigue of other bishops" and warned that Pope Francis would even have to answer to God for the impeachment. Katholisches.info called the papal intervention "the nightmare of this pontificate: purges without procedure". A year later, the plucky bishop died as a result of an operation.

Bishop Valenzuela has the closest contact with Pope Francis. When Francis deposed Bishop Livieres, he appointed Msgr. Valenzuela, then reputed to be the most progressive Bishop of Paraguay, Apostolic Administrator of Ciudad del Este. For Bishop Livieres the appointment was an additional slap in the face of the deposition. Valenzuela, at that time Bishop of Villarrica, was entrusted by Francis with the execution of the Church renewal by Bishop Livieres. As a reminder: Bishop Livieres, a member of Opus Dei and an Argentine like Pope Francis, was one of the first to remove his seminarians from the Joint Paraguayan Seminary in Asuncion, following their appointment as Bishop of Ciudad del Este, to protect them from progressive and liberation theological influences. He promoted priestly vocations and in the parishes, Eucharistic adoration and the traditional Roman rite. He established his own seminary just for his diocese. Although the Diocese of Ciudad del Este covers only ten percent of Catholics in the country, the seminary of Bishop Livieres numbered 70 percent of all seminarians in Paraguay.

At present, 45 cardinals come from the American continent.

In the view of another candidate, who is vigorously named as a possible purple bearer, the Portuguese theologian and Archbishop José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, was named by Jornal Madeira recently with a more realistic date for February 2020. Curial Archbishop José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça is one of those who want to "liberate" the Church from its dogmas.

Also the last Sunday in the Church year, the Christ the King celebration in Novus Ordo, could be a possible date for a consistory. Because of the vacant positions in the College of Papal Electors, the cardinal elevations should take place only in the spring of 2020.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: Presidencia (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

No "Brotherly Visitation" for "Open" Diocese

Bishop Sergio Osvaldo Buenanueva of San Francisco in
Cordoba, in photo as Auxiliary Bishop of Mendoza,
in the background is the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires,
Jorge Mario Bergoglio

(Rome) The betrayal of the priestly promise of chastity is as old as the priesthood, but it has always been an offense, both to the faithful and to the unbelievers, the latter being fond of using it as a moral charge against the Church. In Luther's time this was no different from today. After his ordination, Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss "reformer", first fell into the mills of politics, then into the bed of a woman whom he impregnated, and finally pushed into the front row of the Reformation. In Argentina, the media, not unlike in Europe, are reporting with a mixture of scandal and schadenfreude on the third priest of the diocese of San Francisco and Cordoba, who had to give up his priesthood in the past year because he was not only in a "father" the spiritual sense but also in the physical. The most recent case concerns the priest Marcio Peironi.

The Diocese, established in 1961, has a total of thirty-two diocesan priests, which means that the loss of three its priests is a painful jolt for the diocese. For the time being, there is no indication that Rome intends to send the diocese a "fraternal visitation" as has already happened to the Diocese of Ciudad del Este in neighboring Paraguay in 2014.

The difference seems to lie in the fact that Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este, a traditional Bishop from the ranks of Opus Dei was, by his extensive pastoral work, had "shamed" the liberation theology-inspired Paraguayan Episcopal Conference. The Diocese of San Francisco de Cordoba does, however, constitute an "openness to the surprises of the Holy Spirit", as the newspaper La Capital wrote in yesterday's edition.

Bishop Livieres abandoned the nationwide unified education of the seminarians and in 2007 founded his own diocesan priestly seminary. There the candidates were trained in both forms of the Roman rite and in the traditional sense. The Ciudad del Este priestly seminary had enrolled two and a half times as many seminarians in 2014 as all other dioceses in Paraguay. Although only about ten per cent of Paraguayan faithful belong to this diocese, Bishop Livieres had 70 per cent of all seminarians in the country. This had to do with the different understanding of the priesthood and church. But that was not desired, as such an imbalance would soon have had country-wide consequences.

The "fraternal" inclination to Ciudad del Este

Bishop Livieres was regarded by the other bishops as a "troublemaker". One of them, the liberation theorist, Fernando Lugo, Bishop of San Pedro, the political commitment was so important that he had to be released from his episcopal rights and duties in order to become President of the Union as part of a left coalition. It turned out later that the confinement had more to do with the repeated violation of his celibacy promise. He is the father of at least two children from different women. He has had sexual relations with other women as a priest and bishop. As President of the Republic, he was removed from office after less than four years. Today, he sits as a representative of the Left Party Frente Guasu, which is a member of the Socialist International (SI), in the Paraguayan Senate.

Pope Francis sent a "brotherly visitor" to Bishop Livieres in 2014, he was so fraternal that the bishop was dismissed shortly afterwards, without mentioning a reason and under shameful circumstances, without being able to justify himself against the charge. Pope Francis even denied him audience. Francis will have to justify himself before God, wrote Bishop Livieres in a statement to his deposition. One year later the bishop sadly succumbed to a serious illness.

The priestly seminary of Ciudad del Este still exists, but has been rejoined by the new bishop to the National Seminary of Asuncion. The number of seminarians has fallen to a quarter after a massive purge of "conservative" candidates. Various traditional communities were dissolved, priests and orders were removed from the diocese, numerous changes took place.

The reaction is quite different in the diocese of San Francisco and Cordoba in Argentina. There is no "brotherly" visitation, because the diocese is considered "open to the surprises of the Holy Spirit". To which belongs, apparently, for the newspaper La Capital, also the procreation of children by priests.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi Image: Ciudad de San Francisco (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches... 
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