Four days after accepting the resignation of the Archbishop of Paris, the head of the Catholic Church explicit his decision, Monday, December 6th.
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Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Apepetit, on the first day of his visit to Cyprus and Greece, Thursday, December 2nd. Monday, the last day, at his press conference in the plane who led him to Rome, the head of the Catholic Church, who alone depend on the bishops, explained why. According to him, the prelate has been the victim of “gossip” that eventually prevented it “to govern”.
“I’m asking myself: but what has been done so serious to resign? Who can answer me? (…) What was the Prosecution? Who knows? It’s ugly, no?” , started François in response to a question about the reasons for accepting, and very quickly, to resume the charge that the Archbishop had reset a dozen days before.
The decision of the prelate followed an article of the point, which listed decisions that had provoked oppositions in the diocese, which evoked an intimate relationship that M Gr has maintained in 2012 with A major woman. Asked to know if his decision responded to governance difficulties or something else, François first advised journalists: “Make the investigation!”
Then the pope told that, if he had accepted this resignation, it was that the Archbishop could not “more govern” because of the “gossip” which had ended up “carrying the reputation of a man” . “But what did he do? Interview Francis. We do not know anything.”
“We are all sinners”
The pontiff, however, gave indications on what he knows about this case. “There has been a breach of the sixth command”, which prohibits adultery and, for the Church, various other situations of sexual relations, “but not total,” said the pope, who spoke “Small caresses and massages he was doing at his secretary. That’s the accusation”.
François acknowledged that it was a “sin”, but “not the most serious because the sins of the flesh are not the most serious”. He observed that everyone was sinner, including him, but what the ancient religious communities, like that of the Apostle Peter, were ready to admit, namely to have a bishop sinner, is no longer in the habits of Those today: “We pretend to say that our bishop is saint, with his red cap, but we are all sinners.”
For weeks, the rumors had swollen, and “when the gossip grow, grow up, grow up and take the reputation of a man, he can no longer govern. He lost his reputation no for his sin (… ) But because of the widespread gossip. A man whose reputation has been achieved in this way publicly can no longer govern. And it is an injustice. That’s why I accepted the resignation of Apepetit, not on the ‘altar of truth but on that of hypocrisy, “said the pope, apparently resigning to give the gossip victory.
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