Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, one of the loudest American voices against Pope Francis within his own church, recently responded to a Vatican investigation into his leadership and talk of his potential resignation with a public letter stating, “I cannot resign as Bishop of Tyler because that would be me abandoning the flock.” He added he would step aside only if the pope removed him. “The Holy Father has relieved from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler,” Bishop Strickland, the Vatican said on Saturday in a routine statement of global staffing changes. It added that Francis had appointed Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin as the apostolic administrator of the sede vacante, or temporarily vacant seat, of Tyler. Supporters of Francis, who considered Bishop Strickland’s frequent salvos against the pope beyond the pale and indicative of his extremism, were likely to welcome the firing. But Bishop Strickland, 65 and well below the age of automatic resignation, tested the limits of that tolerance.

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