VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)
By CAROL GLATZ on Friday, 26 September 2014
An Opus Dei bishop who was removed by Pope Francis yesterday has said that he is victim of an “ideological campaign.”
In an open letter following the Vatican’s announcement, Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, 69 said that his removal was due to an ideological campaign by Paraguayan bishops in league with Vatican officials.
While the Vatican did not list specific reasons for the bishop’s dismissal, it came just a few months after the Vatican had ordered him to stop ordaining priests amid ongoing allegations of sexual abuse committed by a high-ranking diocesan official.
A Vatican statement said the “onerous decision” to dismiss Bishop Livieres was made after a “careful examination” of the findings of a Vatican investigation conducted by the congregations for Bishops and for Clergy. An apostolic visitation to the diocese in July was led by Spanish Cardinal Santos Abril Castello, archpriest of Rome’s Basilica of St Mary Major.
Just days before Cardinal Abril went to the diocese to conduct the canonical visit, Bishop Livieres removed Msgr Carlos Urrutigoity from his post of vicar general of the diocese “on the grounds of needing him to take on other tasks,” according to a comment July 30 by Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.
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