Pope Francis Sacks ‘Saintly’ Bishop after Promoting ‘Heretical’ Prelate

Charismatic traditionalist leader who led a flourishing diocese was a thorn in the side of the Vatican

French bishop Dominique Rey, who turned Fréjus-Toulon into France’s most successful diocese, was forced to resign by Pope Francis on January 7.

A day after the Vatican promoted ultra-progressive American Cardinal Robert McElroy as the archbishop of Washington, Pope Francis fired the widely acclaimed conservative French bishop Dominique Rey from his diocese of Fréjus-Toulon.

The sacking marks the end of two years of draconian papal constraints imposed on Rey, who turned Fréjus-Toulon into France’s most successful diocese by working with charismatic and traditionalist communities, provoking the wrath of Pope Francis and the Vatican hierarchy.

On January 7, Rey announced on social media that Francis had asked him to quit. He was doing so out of obedience to the pope, the bishop said, but after being “faced with misunderstandings, pressures, and controversies which are always harmful to the unity of the Church.”

Welcoming Traditionalists and Charismatics

In his resignation letter, Rey stressed that under his leadership Fréjus-Toulon was “able to offer an evangelical witness and a recognized missionary vitality,” due to “the pastoral mobilization of the parishes, to the contribution of movements and communities of various spiritual sensibilities” as well as because of a resurgence of deacons and religious priests and nuns.

“Coming from the Emmanuel community (a pillar of the ‘charismatic renewal’), this promoter of a remuscularized Catholicism was criticized within the Church for his style, which may have been inspired by American evangelical pastors,” liberal French daily Le Monde acknowledged.

“His policy of welcoming new communities was also controversial, regarding traditionalist adherents of the Latin Mass for example, and other charismatics, particularly from Latin America,” the newspaper explained. It also noted that his dismissal “had nothing to do with the many sexual violence scandals that have shaken the Church in recent decades.”

“I am mainly criticized for the overly broad reception of priestly and religious communities or vocations, particularly from the traditional world, as well as dysfunctions in the economic and financial management of the diocese,” the bishop told Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne.

“I have indeed been criticized for my too-great affinity with the traditionalist world,” he said. “In my diocese, I have been keen that (the traditionalist sphere) does not stagnate in a parallel world. Its integration is a real challenge, but these groups must be part of a broader vision of the mission and life of the Church.”

Prioritizing Evangelism

At a private meeting in Rome in 2022, Rey told this correspondent that he was passionate about evangelism and reaching out to lost souls in a highly secularized France. The bishop also revealed that he had supported evangelistic outreaches to the increasing Muslim population in France and had even baptized several Muslim converts.

While he was not firmly attached to the traditionalist Latin Mass movement, he saw it as the Holy Spirit’s way of revitalizing pockets of Catholicism just as the charismatic renewal had done, Rey said. The bishop also spoke of his passion for enhancing biblical teaching among the laity.

A priest-scholar who serves in the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon told The Stream that the bishop could be described as “saintly” and “fatherly.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he elaborated:

“Bishop Rey attracts many young vocations and families. He fights for life and family values. He used to be in the world of finance. He uses his business acumen for the good of the Church. He is dynamic and tries to make the Church grow. He encourages small Catholic minorities to evangelize in a very secular context. He is a missionary who prioritizes evangelization. He fights for the elderly and handicapped. He really loves people. When one meets him, one senses how attentive the bishop is.”

Bishop in Shackles

In June 2022, Rey was blocked from ordaining six deacons and four priests. The bishop then revealed that the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops had prohibited him from receiving new priests into the diocese.

The Vatican had ordered a presbyteral council, rather than the bishop, to make decisions regarding the reception of new priests even though the Code of Canon Law (canon 495) prescribes a council of priests as merely an advisory body to the bishop.

The Dicastery of Bishops also ordered Rey to stop receiving new communities into the diocese. Rey, who belongs to the Emmanuel Community, has incurred Rome’s wrath by offering hospitality to lay and clerical traditionalist and charismatic communities.

In November 2023, the pontiff appointed 58-year-old Mgr. François Touvet, then bishop of Châlons in Champagne, to work alongside Rey and succeed him when the prelate retires.

Sources in the diocese told The Stream that the bishop had been under “intense pressure from the Vatican to resign voluntarily.” But “since Rey chose to remain in his office, the pontiff had no choice but to appoint a coadjutor to put the bishop in shackles.”

Rey also was forced to apply the Charter of St. Leoncius, which stipulates that traditionalist priests must agree to concelebrate at the Chrism Mass and to be available to celebrate the Novus Ordo (New Mass) as required, in accordance with Pope Francis’s Traditionis Custodes — a motu proprio severely restricting the Traditional Latin Mass.

France’s Successful Prelate

While every diocese in France, including Paris, is struggling for vocations, Rey’s seminary in Fréjus-Toulon has 50 seminarians. The diocese has 150 flourishing religious communities and 250 active priests — half the number of active priests in the Paris diocese.

Further, the age pyramid of Fréjus-Toulon is the opposite of the other French dioceses, with 75% of priests under 64 years of age and 30% under 44 years. Almost 50% of priestly vocations come from traditionalist communities. Rey has ordained more than 160 priests in the 25 years of his episcopal tenure.

Rey also has been involved in evangelizing Muslims, and at least 10% of Catholics in his diocese in recent times hail from Islamic backgrounds. The bishop has himself ordained two Muslim converts to the priesthood.

“It seems paradoxical, but the full seminaries have attracted the concern of the Holy See in the southeast of France,” the Italian media La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana commented.

“If times are dark for bishops with a more conservative ecclesiastical sensibility, the same cannot be said for those who fight for women’s ordination and the ‘radical inclusion’ of the LGBT world in the Catholic Church,” it observed, contrasting Rey’s dismissal with McElroy’s elevation.

In 2012, The Guardian, a left-wing British newspaper, reprinted a story from Le Monde, holding Rey as a model of active evangelism “by working with different religious communities, whether French or foreign, large or small, charismatic, traditionalist or missionary.”

The diocese is “active in worship, prayer or explicit evangelization — for instance, by going door to door or being present on beaches and in nightclubs,” The Guardian noted.

Heretic Promoted

Catholics on social media responded angrily to Rey’s dismissal, comparing it to the pope’s sacking of outspoken Texas prelate Bishop Joseph Strickland in November 2023.

Strickland, who strongly supported President Donald Trump and fiercely criticized the pope’s pro-LGBTQ+ position, said that he rejected Francis’s “program undermining the Deposit of Faith.”

“I really can’t look to any reason except I’ve threatened some of the powers that be with the truth of the Gospel,” Strickland said when asked why he had been sacked. “The only answer I have to that is because forces in the Church right now don’t want the truth of the Gospel. They want it changed. They want it ignored. They want to be rid of the truth that is gloriously not going to go away.

“There are people in the Church [who], rather than glorying in the truth of Christ, want to delete significant portions of Sacred Scripture and say, ‘Oh, we got that wrong,’ or ‘We’re just going to ignore it.’”

Outraged Catholics also criticized the pontiff for firing a faithful bishop while promoting the heterodox Cardinal Robert McElroy, who has been accused of covering up Satanic ritual clerical sex abuse and has called for the “radical inclusion” of LGBTQ+ Catholics in the church.

Lawyers for the victims of clerical sex abuse attacked McElroy’s elevation, complaining that the cardinal “has been anything but progressive when it comes to protecting victims of child sexual assault in San Diego,” the diocese McElroy has led since 2015.

“Hundreds of children were raped and sexually abused by priests in the San Diego diocese, and many are now seeking justice,” attorney Morgan Stewart lamented. “These victims have suffered pain for a lifetime because of their horrendous sexual abuse by San Diego priests,” 

The attorneys defending the victims said that McElroy put the San Diego Archdiocese into bankruptcy last year, “hoping to delay or deny compensation to more than 500 victims.”

Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.