Pope removes Sicilian bishop from diocesan leadership
CWN – May 21, 2012
Bishop Francis Micciche of Trapani has been removed from office by Pope Benedict XVI, after an investigation triggered by reports of financial irregularities in the Sicilian diocese [supposedly more than E1,000,000 ($1,300,000) in one diocesan-managed account and possibly more in other accounts].
The Vatican announced on May 21 that the Pontiff has “removed Bishop Francesco Micciche from the pastoral care of the diocese of Trapani, Italy, and appointed Archbishop emeritus Alessandro Plotti of Pisa, Italy, as apostolic administrator.” The official announcement provided no further details. However, Bishop Micciche had been the focus of an apostolic visitation last year, after local prosecutors uncovered missing funds in accounts managed by the Trapani diocese.’
Bishop Micciche told the faithful of Trapani that he would accept the Pope’s decision, but insisted that the complaints against his leadership are “certainly false.” The bishop said that his removal came “as a bolt from the blue,” and said that he thought all questions about his financial affairs had been resolved. He complained that he had not been given an opportunity to see the results of the apostolic visitation of his diocese.
In a lengthy statement, Bishop Micciche said that he had been the victim of an “avalanche of slander.” He suggested that a conspiracy may have been organized against him because he had dared the criticize the power of the Mafia and Masons in Sicily.
The removal of Bishop Micciche comes just over a year after Pope Benedict took a similar step, ousting Australian Bishop William Morris from his post heading the Toowoomba diocese. The Pope took action after Bishop Morris refused several Vatican requests for his resignation, prompted by concerns about his public statements on controversial questions such as the ordination of women and about his administration of the diocese.
Additional sources for this story: See www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=14357
Full disclosure: I fully support the SSPX; at the same time, I’m a ‘glass half full’ guy about the Holy Father, to wit:
- Bishop of Cleveland reversed; over ten churches must be re-opened.
- A bishop is Australia is removed.
- The leadership organization of modernist/new age sisters is taken over.
- The Holy See imposes a new English translation of the fatally-flawed Novus Ordo Missae, at least bringing it in line with the Latin, getting rid of some of the theological and idealogically driven old translation. (‘for many’)
- The Pope writes to the German bishops and explains why they, too, must use ‘for many’.
- In his Maundy Thursday sermon, he ‘calls out’ the disenting modernists in Austria.
- Bishop in the above-article removed.
- Appoints Bishop Lori to Baltimore (Did you see the bishop’s installation sermon? He uses the word ‘tradition’ about twenty times. The NCR had a cow.)
- What else am I forgetting? There have been several other decisive moves.
My assesment: the proverbial ‘snowball effect’ is finally coming into play. Why did the Holy Father wait this long to move? I don’t know, and, no, it is not as dramatic as many of us would wish, and Assisi III happened; yet, the Holy Father has read his Shakespeare, i.e., he has an understanding of the messiness of human nature and the various currents that are affected by the same. That understanding is one thing that he and Bishop Fellay have in common, wherever else they might disagree.
Two predictions: (keeping in mind that I’ve been wrong all too many times.)
- Some more decisive moves are in the works; he’s just getting started; even though he won’t go far enough for many of us, he’s doing more now than JPII ever contemplated.
- The SSPX will be given a canonical standing that requires no compromise on VII; the Holy Father will allow, as the good Archbishop asked, the ‘experiment’ of Tradition as defined by the SSPX.