Pope Francis has removed a popular conservative Bishop of a small Texas town, Bishop Joseph Strickland. One reason cited is that he has constantly criticized Pope Francis in the past months. He also criticizes Joe Biden. There was an investigation by two bishops Pope Francis selected but the results were not released.
It’s a very rare move. He immediately replaced him with Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin.
According to an interview in the conservative website LifeSiteNews, Strickland believed one of the reasons given for his ouster was his refusal to implement Francis’ 2021 restrictions on the use of traditional Latin Mass.
Last year, when the Vatican defrocked ultra-conservative U.S. priest Frank Pavone for “blasphemous” social media posts and disobedience to bishops, Strickland had defended him publicly.
On Saturday, Francis removed Bishop Joseph Strickland from the pastoral governance of the diocese of Tyler, Texas, after he accused the Pope of “undermining the deposit of faith.”
Through social media, Strickland criticized Francis’s liberal views on same-sex marriage, abortion, and LGBTQ issues.
The Hill reports that In 2020, Strickland called the church “weak” and “not clear” and dared the pontiff to fire him, The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) said earlier this year.
The Associated Press reported Strickland criticized Francis’s recent meeting on hot-topic issues, including the integration of LGBTQ Catholics, the potential for female deacons, and access to the priesthood for married men.
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Strickland spread anti-vaccine messages during the COVID-19 pandemic, while criticizing President Biden’s support for abortion rights, the NCR reported. In 2020, Strickland also voiced support for a controversial video that argued Catholics could not vote for Democrats in political elections.
Francis ordered two U.S. bishops to conduct an apostolic visitation to Strickland in June. The move came after complaints from priests and laypeople in Tyler about Strickland making unorthodox claims.
The head of the church in Texas, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, said Saturday the two bishops “conducted an exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of governance and leadership” by Strickland.
In other words, he wasn’t preaching the required political narrative.
Bishop Strickland posted this on X this afternoon.
“I pray that this effort is prayerful, respectful, and focused on Jesus. He is the only support I need, and I feel the profound embrace of His Sacred Heart. I appreciate the vigorous faith this is inspired by but please remember I am nothing, Jesus is everything. Viva Cristo Rey!”
Show your support for Bishop Strickland next Saturday in Tyler, Texas. pic.twitter.com/iD4bPLLlbc
— Fred Simon (@FredSimonTLM) November 12, 2023
If you’ve been taught to protect life, marriage is between a man and a woman, and priests should not marry, how do you suddenly buy into the opposite? That’s especially the case given Pope Francis is Marxist.
HIS REPLACEMENT
Bishop Joe Vasquez, a Mexican American, is supportive of illegal immigration as is Pope Francis.
As the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, he was instrumental in the “Share the Journey” campaign, which was launched by Pope Francis. This campaign called for greater solidarity with migrants and refugees, aiming to break down barriers of fear and suspicion and foster understanding and hospitality. It involved more than 100 U.S. dioceses and included various activities such as special Masses, prayer vigils, and social media engagement to show solidarity with people on the move, many of whom were fleeing violence, terrorism, and disaster.
Vasquez is committed to global issues.
The problem with this thinking is people don’t suffer from fear and suspicion. They see massive illegal immigration without assimilation as destroying the nation and giving a totalitarian Democrat Progressive Party a permanent electoral majority.
Pope Francis has regularly eliminated the voices of conservatives in the religious order. He’s filled the College of Cardinals with leftists. He’s too political for a Pope. Maybe Bishop Strickland was too.
THE REASONS?
- The Latin Mass
- Undermining the deposit of faith
- Integration of LGBTQ Catholics, the potential for female deacons, abortion, and access to the priesthood for married men.
- Anti-vaccine and anti-Joe Biden messages
- Complaints
- Governance and leadership
- Integration with migrants [illegal aliens] and [fake] refugees, and global issues.
Liberalism has been in my Church longer than Francis. How do you think he got there.
God help us.
This is a fake pope using fake Christian doctrine. His handlers make up the clown show as they go on. It is deliberately outrageous. Purpose: to prepare the people for what is coming. Nothing Can Stop What Is Coming!
While I have issues with Bergolgio, the Catholic Church is the one True Faith established by Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior
I was raised Catholic and quit believing totally after the terrorist attacks in Paris a few years ago. Our local church/priest 3 weeks in a row (immediately after the terrorist attack) told us to feel compassion for the terrorists and try to “understand” them. They are human and deserve our love and prayers. NOPE! They don’t. And when the church told me I MUST love them and understand why they did what they did, I was done, and remain so. Aliens are Gods.
I too left the church back in 1980. That fall I was attending mass and during the sermon the priest said a vote for Ronald Reagan was sinful and I must vote for Jimmy Carter, the pro abortion Jimmy Carter (my addition). That was my last Sunday mass.
Sadly, there are bad priests like the one you mentioned, but you should not allow one bad priest or even a minority to drive you out father one True Faith. One of the reasons God allowed Judas to betray him is to show further generations not to follow the man but God. Satan is attacking the Church from within and without to drive people away from the one true faith. The good news more new priests are more orthodox and traditional.
I stand with Bishop Strickland.
America was founded by Protestants, and even Deists, certainly not Catholics. How can you be loyal to the US Constitution and America if you have loyalty to some Marxist Pope? He’s “God’s chosen”? Really? The text of the Bible is clear. We don’t need some old codger in fancy robes interpreting it for us.
I see we have a dimwitted Pastor Billy Bob type. You know Maryland was a Catholic colony, and Catholic Charles Carroll was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Millions of Catholics have served our country. We have loyalty to God. BTW: The Holy Catholic Church is the only one TRUE Faith founded by Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. Your religion came centuries latter.
Let’s not share in the ignorance of some, by insulting Billy Bobs like me.
Idol worshippers
You are fool. Try reading about the one True Faith from Catholic sources.
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Socrates
“The fool takes no delight in understanding, but rather in displaying what he thinks.” – Proverbs 18:2
“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” – Shakespeare
‘There are not more than one hundred people in the USA that hate the Catholic Church; there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen ( then Monsignor) in 1938
Protestantism is made by man.Catholicism is the Word of God Incarnate. It will survive after the fake Pope installs by a Jesuit coup has been forgotten
Maryland was a catholic colony.
The Catholic church has been against freedom of the individual throughout its history. They supported the Nazis in WWII, hid their stolen wealth, moved them around the world after the war to ‘save’ them, and now there is an openly Marxist / Communist Pope. The ‘church’ as it were probably supports Hamas these days.
Perhaps a little more introspection at some Protestant sects historically and some of them in their current format and you might want to consider that little high horse you’ve mounted.
Your abysmal ignorance of the NAZI era is obvious. The semi-official church of NAzi Germany was the Lutheran Church whose bishops were approved by the Party. Catholics were persecuted, hunted and many expected for their active assistance in helping many Jews and other to escape the NAZI death camps.
Maybe instead of being a divider/hater you might want to consider Christians as a group and not some pro Protestant level nonsense.
Pope Benedict XVI “stepped down” prior to “Pope Francis?” The last Pope to “step down” was 600 years prior to Pope Benedict XVI. Why has this not been investigated. It appears that “Pope Francis” and his Marxist/communist views was installed. There needs to be an investigation of this Pope and the Vatican. If you were Satan and wanted to undermine the Catholic Church to aid in the ushering in of a communist NWO in America wouldn’t you follow this path?
Most conservative Catholics realize that Benefit did not “step down.”He was removed in a Jesuit coup who installed Francis. Francis has now packed the College of Cardinals with his ilk and it will take a militant operation to remove them. ArchBishop Vergano may very well establish a True Papacy very soon. We have to see how this new Synod works out.I expect a major schism in the Church. If you wish to hear ArchBishop Vergano his warnings are on YouTube.