Resignation of Mgrhel Aupetit adds to disorder of French Catholic Church

The Pope has accepted, Thursday, the resignation of the archbishop of Paris, implicated for maintaining an intimate relationship with a woman. A quick decision that intervenes while Catholics are shocked by the report on sexual abuse in the Church.

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The suspense will not last long. The Vatican announced, Thursday, December 2, at noon, that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of the Archbishop of Paris. At the end of several months marked by internal tensions to the diocese around the management of different files by the prelate, and four days of rumors after the publication by the point of an article also putting into question his private life, Michel Apepetit, 70 years old, had “handed over his charge” in the hands of the Roman Pontiff – who appoints and, if any, dedicts the bishops of the whole world – last week.

This decision, who had spoken in a letter to the Pope, had become public on Friday. In a week, so the opinion of the head of the Catholic Church was made. As long as he has left a proposal for a resignation for a long time, or even refusing, François quickly ousted the one he had appointed to these first plan, in December 2017, and whose Theoretical retirement age will only intervene in five years. It is now up to the Pope to name a successor to Mgr Aupetit.

While waiting for this appointment, who could take time, the Vatican indicated to have appointed as an apostolic administrator – Temporary Head – of the Diocese Georges Pontier, Bishop Emeritus of Marseille and former President of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF). In a declaration published shortly afternoon, Michel Apepetit said to have “been strongly troubled by the attacks of which it was the object” but have “the heart in peace” by learning “this acceptance of the discount of [his] charge on the part of the Holy Father “.

On November 23, the point had written that an email of 2012, which would have resurfaced, would have revealed to the entourage of the Archbishop, in the spring of 2020, very close relations between him, then the general vicar of the diocese , and a woman. The prelate had been defended by explaining that he might have been able to have an “ambiguous behavior” but that in no case he recognized an “intimate relationship”.

Confidence rupture

The Vatican announcement was made at the moment the Pope was on the plane that led him for a visit to Cyprus, where he pleaded for “a fraternal church”. This strange calendar and the speed of the decision suggest that the Pope has not recently discovered the difficulties of the Diocese of Paris. The resignations of two of his broad vicars in a short time – Alexis LeProux in December 2020 and Benoist of Sinety in March 2021 – could only sound, in Rome, as a strong alarm signal on possible tensions caused by the governance of the diocese. They arrived after other episodes, among which the conditions of the layoff and the dismissal of the director of the Saint-Jean-de Passy school, in the spring of 2020, who had been criticized with the nuncity, The representative of the Pope in France.

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/Media reports.