Pope Francis on Saturday forcibly removed the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a firebrand conservative prelate active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and has come to symbolize the polarization within the U.S. Catholic hierarchy.
A one-line statement from the Vatican said Francis had “relieved” Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of Tyler and appointed the bishop of Austin as the temporary administrator.
Strickland, 65, has emerged as a leading critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of “undermining the deposit of faith.” He has been particularly critical of Francis’ recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church during which hot-button issues were discussed, including ways to better welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics.
Earlier this year, the Vatican sent in investigators to look into his governance of the diocese, amid reports that priests and laypeople in Tyler had complained and that he was making unorthodox claims.
We have an expression in Québec for people who either:
1- Defend someone else’s interests with more fervor than the other person themselves.
2- To have extremist values, thoughts or actions.
The expression is “Être plus catholique que le pape.” Or to be more Catholic than the pope himself.
Oh this guy definitely thinks himself the most holy Catholic person to ever live. He is light years away from the papacy in terms of ever being Pope, but definitely casually suggests to his followers that HE some random fuck in Texas would be a better Pope than the actual Pope
In Italian we say “more royalist than the king”. Btw, the Pope was criticized even by Italian politicians because “they know better” what the Catholic faith should be like. And I’m not referring to some minor party, but to the very backbone of the current government. It seems like the Pope is intentionally trying to mess up their whole electoral campaign based on tradicional family and morality.
We have pretty much the same expression in English!